It’s 11pm at a Coffs Harbour sports club. The lone gambler is $400 down and still waiting for the feature.
This particular poker machine, The King of the Nile (pictured), is his favourite. When the coveted 15-free-games feature appears – all too infrequently – any winnings are trebled. Even better, this machine gives him a second chance if the original prize is a meager one.

Problem is he is so far down the gurgler by now that he would need a whopping payback to get anywhere near break-even. Every crisp $50 note he pumps into the slot carries with it an increasingly feverish hope of redemption. And when that has gone, he can replenish his supply of notes from the auto-teller at the door.
Reflecting between spins, he knows this session will end badly, as so many have. It is just a question of how badly….
Losing hard earned dollars is always a wrench. But losing the money on the first day of a holiday with his family waiting for him up north makes it even worse. There is no more cash after this. These are the dollars he would have spent on Movie World roller coasters and ice creams and kayak hire. Now he has to think of excuses.
He leaves the club feeling stunned, flattened, numb. Rattling through his brain on an endless, relentless loop are desperate thoughts of how to get the money back and how he could have been so stupid and self-destructive….again.
The gambler lies awake half the night beating himself up, mentally and physically – feeling like the lowest form of humanity, a father who spends his kids’ holiday money on pokies.
The above is a true story of a compulsive gambler, one who asked to remain anonymous to spare his family But it will be familiar to anyone who has been stricken themselves or knows someone who is in the grip of what is a form of mental illness.
The gambler says his nightmare is an experience he would not wish on his worst enemy. And it’s an experience that all those rent-seekers trying to defeat a sensible and moderate attempt to slow the losses of problem gamblers need to understand.
The man above, at his most sane, might have chosen to spend no more than $50 on gambling that night. All that was needed was for someone to break the cycle and force him outside to gather his thoughts and break the breathless panic that all gamblers feel while a losing streak.
Gamblers will tell you that waiting for the feature is like waiting for the kick from heroin or cocaine. All the little wins and losses are what the gambler puts up with in the hope of the big reward – the flashing lights, the ringing bells, the happy music, the rolling numbers. When it comes, it comes in a rush. And then he wants more. And more.
The compulsion bears no relation to age or status or profession or level of intelligence of the individual. The gambler can understand perfectly well at an intellectual level that his or her chances of winning are extremely slight.  But this activity is not about reason or even money. It is certainly not about having fun.
The will to self-destruction comes from self-doubt and self-hatred and depression. It is at once a form of escape from the negative feelings and a reinforcement of them. A big win brings merely relief and ammunition for the next gambling session. A big loss just confirms the emerging sense of loathing and worthlessness.
The Coffs Harbour scene, or something like it, is played out every day in the pubs and clubs of eastern Australia – a part of the world that has the highest concentration of poker machines on the planet and where it is possible to lose thousands of dollars an hour feeding the slots.
It might be a tradie blowing his pay packet in one sitting, having originally sat down with the intention of fluttering five bucks over a schooner after work. It might be a pensioner seeking escape from the loneliness of an empty flat. Or it might be a businessman sneaking out at lunchtime to try and win back the $1,000 he blew the day before.
Why do we let this continue? Because the power of the media, sports clubs, gaming companies and other vested interests are such that politicians are loathe to tackle what is a rampant social disease – one that devastates individuals, wrecks families, ruins businesses and destroys lives.
Reason tells you the sheer easy availability of high stakes, highly addictive poker machines comes at a cost too high for our society to bear. The sceptical – those who think this is really just about personal choice – should read the report from the Productivity Commission, a body known for its liberal market approach to economic issues:
  • About 130,000 Australians (about 1 per cent of the adult population) are estimated to have severe problems with their gambling. A further 160,000 adults are estimated to have moderate problems.
  • Problem gamblers comprise 15 per cent of regular (non-lottery) gamblers and account for about $3.5 billion in expenditure annually — about one-third of the gambling industries’ market.
  • They lose on average around $12 000 each per year, compared with just under$650 for other gamblers.
  • The prevalence of problem gambling is related to the degree of accessibility of gambling, particularly poker machines.
  • The costs include financial and emotional impacts on the gamblers and on others,with on average at least five other people affected to varying degrees.
  • One in 10 said they have contemplated suicide due to gambling.
  • Nearly half those in counselling reported losing time from work or study in thepast year due to gambling.
No-one is saying these problems will magically disappear with a pre-commitment system under which gamblers set a maximum loss before they hit the machines.  But it is extremely hard to believe that such a system will not go some way to easing the pain of a problem that afflicts hundreds of thousands of people directly and hundreds of thousands more indirectly.
If we can’t address this, if we yet again bow to the rent-seekers and greed peddlers who disguise self-interest as the community interest, our political system will truly have failed. We may as well just lie down and let them do us over for eternity.
We can’t afford to keep waiting for the feature.

12 Comments

Aidan · September 27, 2011 at 5:55 AM

Great piece.

megpie71 · September 27, 2011 at 7:27 AM

If pokies are as essential to the success of sporting clubs as some of the more vocal rent-seekers opine, then I have a question for them: why are the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers still doing well in the AFL, and able to sport teams each year? Why do Perth Glory still compete in soccer? The Perth Wildcats in the basketball? The Western Warriors at cricket? West Coast Fever in netball? The WA Reds in Rugby League? Western Force in the Rugby Union? Perth Heat in the baseball?

Not a one of those clubs has poker machines in their clubhouse (or at least, not unless their clubhouses are based in Burswood Casino, which to the best of my knowledge, they aren't) – they're illegal over this side of the Nullabor, save for the ones in the Casino. Western Australia isn't the most populous state in the Commonwealth, either – but somehow we're still managing to support nine different national level sporting teams, in eight different sports, without needing poker machines to do so. If there's an addiction being fed by Western Australian sporting teams, it's the addiction for the more genuine rush of the game, of the wins and losses there.

It is possible to have a vibrant, active culture without poker machines. Come to the west coast, and see how we do it.

Anonymous · September 27, 2011 at 10:19 AM

It is very noticeable to a “foreigner” in WA that the pubs there are much more sociable than their east coast cousins. On the east coast the racket of the pokies drowns out the sullen silence of the gamblers, whilst the Wa pubs are humming with conversation.
MJC

Anonymous · September 27, 2011 at 10:08 PM

We all pay the price.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-28/pokies-to-prison/2956870

Doug Evans · September 29, 2011 at 12:05 AM

An excellent piece. There is no ethical argument against moving to reign in this social evil but how shrill and politically potent is the defense mounted by the self interested as they attempt to protect their profits at any price.

Reminds me of the mining rent tax and the carbon tax. Illustration after illustration of the power of unelected vested interest to shape what is left of our democracy to their own ends irrespective of the best interest of Australian citizens.

Sue · September 29, 2011 at 10:40 PM

To the WA readers on a political program during this past week a Liberal WA Senator was supporting Clubs Australia. She spoke of going to the Eastern state clubs with friends and knew how much the community groups would lose if the clubs closed down through lack of revenue.
She did not speak on how pokies were banned in WA, a true hypocrite.

Ann · October 2, 2011 at 9:55 AM

Well written, familiar story and seen it myself

SimsonMc · October 3, 2011 at 8:01 AM

Hi Mr D

So true. If you have a look at the financial statements of these organisations, it will show just how little they actually do put back into community programs.

There are also plenty of clubs that are in trouble financially who do have poker machines. These machines usually cover up the incompetence of the Board and Management.

Anonymous · October 7, 2011 at 2:56 AM

The old-style pub near me was nothing to get too romantic about, but the public bar had a group of regulars and a certain rough and ready charm. There were pokies in a back room but these were not lucrative enough for the owner. He managed to get permission to demolish the 140-year-old pub, the only building of historical significance in the suburb, to make way for a featureless pokie barn. This neon atrocity never seems to be busy in the non-gambling areas, even on a Saturday night, and the new young staff appear to look upon customers with contempt. But I suppose that the place is making more money for its owner, (and the state government,) via suckers blowing the rent money so it must be all right.

Lisa Hill · May 10, 2012 at 2:28 AM

A great piece, and worthy winner of the Best Australian Blogs Award for Advocacy. Well done!

cortexvortex · May 10, 2012 at 11:42 PM

Let's be honest about WA clubs – a fact that never gets mentioned is that the membership of a NSW club is $5 – $11 a year, in WA the membership is $1000 – $2000 a year thereby excluding the poor.

Anonymous · December 13, 2013 at 3:21 AM

After working in the industry for over 3 years (in nsw), I can honestly say without a doubt that after accounting for typical expenses such as wages, cost of goods, utilities, rent (if applicable), and contracts such as cleaning and security the traditional pub services (bar, bistro, bottleshop) would struggle to break even Monday thru Thursday, likely only making any real income during peak service days/hours (Friday – Saturday; 6pm-10pm).
From a financial perspective, the traditional pub services alone run at a weekly loss in many cases.
Now consider a gaming lounge with just 30 machines, the daily take from this section alone can easily break the 10,000 mark during typical off-peak service days/times and during the peak service days/hours that figure can triple without any extra costs to the venue.
The sad reality is, pubs and clubs in nsw have gone down a road of no-return and without these machines it would seem financially unviable as a business.
Now the social issues are definitely a concern which in years to come will likely result in less patronage for venues all over, or rather less demand for traditional pub/club services an a higher demand for gaming machines as of 2013 I've noticed my local leagues club has recently added another 60 gaming machines adding to their previous inventory of 120.

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