- In short: One of the first cashless gaming trials in NSW found the technology made little difference to the behaviour of gamblers.
- The Wests New Lambton trial has received criticism from gambling reform advocates, who say it did not include a card with binding and default limits.
- What’s next?: The Independent Panel on Gaming Reform will provide findings from an expanded statewide cashless gaming trial.
I must say, I have a much much more positive opinion of blackjack or poker than I do of sports betting—in fact, my opinion on those is basically neutral if not mildly positive—and I feel more positively towards sports betting than pokies. I’m not interested in banning any of those, just in decreasing their societal prevalence and in decreasing the amount the industry is profiting from their exploitation. It shouldn’t be normal for kids to be exposed to gambling when they watch Friday Night Footy and start casually discussing the betting odds. The companies shouldn’t be making massive profits by causing harm, without also being made to pay back to society in some way.
Yes, a bit of betting can be fun. So can drinking. And we have a pretty big excise on alcohol. Based on the numbers in this page, a case of 24 cans of beer has about $18 added to its price because of tax (and that’s not even counting GST!). When that case probably costs less than $100, that means it’s an over 20% tax. So “people should still be allowed to do it because it’s a fun occasional thing” isn’t a very strong argument against increasing tax on gambling.
I should probably admit though, I mainly included the tax thing so my comment flowed better and followed the “rule of 3”. I would like to see it taxed more, that much is true. But I can’t actually think how to practically institute such a tax, which I would rather were on the back-end, more similar to corporate taxes than to GST. The first thing I can think of would be to do it via council rates and zoning laws, but that would have the unfortunate effect of benefiting online gambling over casinos and (for now—though as I’ve said, I would like pokies outside of casinos to be banned) clubs/pubs, which isn’t ideal either.
But regardless of the whole tax thing, for me the most important thing is by far the other two issues. Advertising should be outright banned, the same as smoking ads have been for a long time. And pokies should not be allowed to suck the life out of our local clubs and pubs. Australia has 20% of the poker machines in the entire world (despite about 0.5% of the world’s population), and a massive 80% of pokies outside of casinos. That should be banned. If you want to play the pokies, you should go to a casino. The “clubs couldn’t survive without pokies” bullshit needs to die. They do fine in Western Australia. They did fine in Queensland all the way up until the '90s. They do fine all over the rest of the world.
Yeah we probably agree more than disagree. I just see taxing sin being a cop out that leaves all the harm of privatisation, all the harm of regressive taxation and corruption of peverse incentives, and then cops out on the social responsibility by going “we’re already beating you poors with the stick, what more could you want from us!?”
Defs if it was government run as harm minimisation (which incidentally is what I’d like to see done for alcohol and other drugs) it should be done in a way which does not promote or glorify it but also doesn’t shame people for wanting to do it. Just try not to get people hooked (or perhaps: not try to get people hooked) and offer non judgemental and non patronising assistance for those who want to stop or limit themselves.
All that is true, and unfortunate. Personally I just see it as doing more good than harm, especially if the revenue raised were to go to harm minimisation services, like if the alcohol excise were used to fund alcohol addiction treatment services.
I’d prefer it to what we have for sure. I just think we can do better and should hold our government to actually governing and using power to build systems to provide the needs of society (of which vice is many!) in a pro-social fashion.