Gambling Denial And Addiction Are A Dangerous Mix

The Age

Thursday November 13, 2008

Poker machines are at the heart of the state's gambling problem.

FORMER Queensland premier Wayne Goss was asked recently if he had any regrets about his time in politics. "I wish I'd never brought in poker machines," he said. "I think they're a scourge. The problem with poker machines in my view is that the people who mainly play them are the people who can least afford to do so." That view is supported by Victorian Government research obtained by The Age, which concludes: "Electronic gaming machines are still the number one cause of problem gaming in Victoria."

Despite a $132million Government campaign to reduce problem gaming, the Sweeney report, commissioned by the Justice Department, found that almost half of "at risk" gamblers - those most likely to develop a problem - are visiting gaming venues more than once a week this year, up from 28% just two years ago. Confirming the link to electronic gaming machines, 87% of these gamblers played "the pokies" this year, up from 71% two years ago. Premier John Brumby, however, simply refuses to accept that problem gambling is getting worse. Apparently discounting the Government's own study, and mountains of other research to the same effect, he told The Age: "All the evidence I've got shows that the plans we have put in place are working." One cannot help but wonder why public money should be spent on Government research if the Premier so readily discounts its findings.

So what is the evidence Mr Brumby cites? "We are seeing gaming revenue as a share of overall state revenue at its lowest-ever level." What he fails to mention is that Victoria is more reliant on gaming revenue than any other state - it raises 25% more from gambling than the state average. A closer look at the budget reveals the extent of Mr Brumby's denial about problem gambling and his Government's increasing reliance on the revenue generated by this social ill. The annual report of the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation shows Victorians lost a record $5billion on gambling last financial year, which produced $1.6billion in tax revenue - above budgeted expectations. Overall gaming spending decreased by more than 16% in the past seven years. But the telling figure is the 14% spending increase in just four years on gaming machines to $2.6billion. Players of the pokies for the first time contributed more than $1billion to the state coffers. A recent Monash University analysis found problem gamblers accounted for more than half the money lost on the machines, and hence more than half of the state's take of $1billion.

The research evidence makes very clear the nexus between Victoria's 30,000 gaming machines and problem gamblers, 80% of whom play them. The Sweeney research found the proportion of the public playing poker machines fell from 80% in 2006 to 61% this year. The chilling implication is that at-risk gamblers in fact made a growing contribution to the state's tax take.

The Government has initiated admirable structural reforms in the gaming industry, but has not tackled the single most important factor in problem gambling - the abundance of gaming machines. Even the promised removal of ATMs from venues must wait until 2012. Awareness campaigns have clearly worked on the general public, but not on those most at risk of losing everything. The public seems to understand this better than Mr Brumby and Co: a majority said the Government's problem-gambling measures were "quite or very ineffective", the Sweeney study reports. The point about addiction is that problem gamblers do not act rationally; indeed, the worse their financial and other stresses, the more they are likely to yield to their compulsion. And for every problem gambler, the lives of another half a dozen people - family, friends, workmates - are also blighted.

Western Australia has held out against gaming machines; the state has only 1500, confined to Perth's casino. Not coincidentally, the state has the lowest rate of problem gamblers. Earlier this year, then gaming minister Ljiljanna Ravlich said that governments "have a duty to balance the issues of consumer choice and community harm ... We anticipate that this policy costs us in the order of $300million in terms of forgone revenue. But, in terms of the other side of the ledger, quite clearly there are savings in terms of the likely negative impact of problem gaming."

In stark contrast, the Brumby Government is in denial about problem gambling, its dependence on the revenue this generates and the social costs involved. The Government is gambling on a game of political bluff, at Victoria's expense.