The numbers tell the story. I know numbers are a big turn-off, but bear with me because the story is important, and precisely because numbers are a turn-off, the clubs have been able to dismiss problem gambling as a minor matter not affecting many people.
The ACT has 5000 poker machines. They make a gross profit of $180 million a year. Poker machines return 87per cent to the gambler and the remaining 13per cent is gross profit.
So it means $1.4 billion a year has to be put through the 5000 ACT poker machines to generate the $180 million.
It is an astonishing amount of money. The clubs like to give the impression that the vast bulk of this money is generated from the great bulk of their patrons having small harmless flings.
The numbers tell a different story.
Let's pretend all adults in Canberra put in an equal amount into poker machines. They would be putting in about $7000 a year each and would each lose around $900 a year each. That would be the least harmful way of distributing the loss.
But it is not distributed like that.
A report by ANU researchers Tanya Davidson and Bryan Rodgers for the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission surveyed the prevalence of gambling in the ACT.
They found that only 30per cent of ACT adults used poker machines in the past year. So 70per cent either never or hardly ever use poker machines.
So the average poker machine player in Canberra puts a little over $23,000 a year through the machines and loses $3000 a year.
Now we are getting into harmful territory. But it gets worse.
The ANU study found that only 3per cent of ACT adults play poker machines once a week or more.
Unfortunately, the ANU study did not find what percentage of total playing was done by the once-or-more-a-week players. That was not their purpose. Their remit was to isolate risk groups so action could be better directed, and they did a good job.
It stands to reason, though, that the regular once-or-more-a-week players will be overall putting more into poker machines than the irregular players. Let's say a half or a tad more. That would mean just 7000 people in the ACT are on average putting in $100,000 a year each, for a loss of $13,000 a year, generating $90 million in gross profit for the clubs.
I don't want to stretch present research further than it can go, but it is quite apparent that the harmless-fun impression the clubs give is way off the mark. The research suggests the true position is that a very large proportion of poker machine profits comes from very few people.
The research proves that the very best position is that the ''average'' player of all those who play is putting $23,000 a year through the machines for a loss of $3000 a year, which is not harmless fun and is, indeed, problem gambling.
More likely, though, half of the profits are coming from just 7000 people.
Small wonder then the clubs are fighting any control on problem gamblers so vociferously - it would wipe out half their profits.
Some research suggests that between 25per cent and 35per cent of profits come from problem gamblers. The ANU research points to a higher figure, especially given that survey respondents would underestimate their gambling.
Unfortunately, the trial of mandatory pre-commitment will not give us the true picture. That's why the clubs are going along with it.
What is needed is thorough research on what percentage of total poker machine profits come from what percentage of the players.
The ANU research hints that the clubs are right in suggesting that the percentage of players who are problem gamblers is very small. But the clubs are quite wrong in suggesting that this means that only a small percentage of profits come from those problem gamblers.
More likely the very few problem gamblers are providing a high proportion of the profits, maybe half, depending on your definition of ''problem gambler''. In short, the present set-up of Australian clubs reaping $12 billion in poker machine profits every year from the misery of, say, 100,000 poker machine addicts is immoral.
The libertarian argument does not wash here. A libertarian approach presumes a free will. More and more evidence reveals some people have addictive personalities where there is no free will. Making gambling illegal is not going to work but the ubiquitous and artful placing of massive temptation can be curtailed in the same way that people's ''right'' to drive when intoxicated or not wearing seatbelts has been curtailed.
The clubs are quite right to uphold the right of people to have a small harmless fling. Well, let the small harmless fling be restricted to $1 and the pull of a lever, which would mean an addict would be restricted to $1 every 10 seconds or $6 a minute or $36 an hour - something someone on the basic wage could at least keep up with - without robbing, defrauding, cheating on family and the like.
This ACT trial is a wasteful delaying tactic. We know the clubs are feasting on addicts - a bit like legalised heroin dealers.
We won't stop them being addicts. But at least we can control the dose.
+The Republican presidential nomination race in the US is backfiring in a highly entertaining way. The Republican Party, which in the past decade and a half has been the favoured vehicle of the fundamentalist Protestant Christian right, now has as its two leading lights a Mormon and a serial adulterer double-divorced confirmed-again Roman Catholic. Mitt and Newt. Maybe the Republicans like diversity, tolerance and liberalism after all.
.gif)
