HOW THE POKIES TOOK MY NAN FOR $200K
Is Prime Minister Julia Gillard backing away from pokie reform?
According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald she’s reneging on her promise to introduce a pre-commitment scheme for poker machines.
As the wrangle continues, it’s worth remembering what’s at stake. Read this shocking story…
We have a running joke in our family that Nanna’s gambling paid for the renovations at our local leagues club. Unfortunately it’s one of those “jokes” that isn’t really funny at all, because it is just that bit too close to the bone.
After my grandfather died, my Nan was overcome with grief and overwhelmed by the demands of everyday life. She had never paid a bill, written a cheque or balanced a budget. She sold her unit and came to live with us, putting aside 10 per cent of her money to build a small granny flat so that she could still be independent.
She had plenty of money left to see her through her days in comfort. She had enough to spend on holidays and special treats for herself.
Unfortunately it soon became obvious that her “treats” were trips to the leagues club to play the pokies.
She loved the club. Everyone was so welcoming. They knew her name at the door, they brought her free coffee in the morning and glasses of wine in the afternoon. Within a few months she was going every day, even when she told us she was off to the shops or the movies. I dropped her off there a few times and witnessed how well she was treated – everyone welcomed her by name and told her how wonderful she looked, how nice her clothes were, how young she looked for her age.
Within 18 months all of her money was gone – in excess of $200,000.
She now relies on the pension and is fortunate she doesn’t have to pay rent or bills as she could not afford them.
Those “lovely people” who worked in the club must have known how much money she was putting through those machines.
Poker machines are insidious; they are designed to stimulate the same places in the brain that cause addiction, sending a rush of dopamine to the brain’s receptors and making the player feel compelled to push the button again and again. I’ve seen it in action; I have seen the combination of their trance-like qualities and the seduction of the club atmosphere suck the will power out of a person and their life savings at the same time.
We have seen how legislation has reduced the number of people addicted to cigarettes; I would like to see changes to protect people from the addictions of poker machines. I know many would say that I am a lefty do-gooder, that people like me would have us living in a “Nanny State”, but heck, sometimes the community has to step up and make a stand.
It’s no longer OK for club management to turn a blind eye while vulnerable, addicted people are being bled dry.
Yes, they put back into the community – a cheque here and there for the local hospital, cheap meals at the bistro, supporting junior sports. Take a look at their annual reports however and you will see that most of this is tokenistic. Clubs in WA manage to support their communities without poker machines, it’s time we learned how it is done.
*”Anonymous” is a Hoopla reader who has written a personal and sensitive account which may have family repercussions if her identity is revealed.
Her latest email adds PS: “These days she (Nan) still spends a big chunk of her pension on the pokies but before hand, she pays money to mum as savings for her funeral and puts money aside for Christmas etc. This was her idea, she said she learned the hard way how to manage her money.”
So, the Hoopla wants to know: What’s your position on the proposed poker machine reforms? Do you have a similar story to “anonymous”? Do you think the planned legislation will help, hinder or be of no consequence to our society?
The substance of the Gillard government poker machine reforms:
- The legislation would introduce a “pre-commitment” system. People who want to play the pokies will have to set their limits before they start.(As we know, our limits are different when we’re sober and not caught up in the thrill of the game.)
- Poker machines will then flash messages about the risk of gambling and tell players how much they’re spending on average each hour. ATMs in pubs and clubs will have a maximum daily withdrawal limit of $250.
- The pre-commitment system will apply for high-intensity machines – ones which allow players to lose upwards of $1200 an hour, not for lower-intensity machines.
- The government says the pre-commitment will apply to high-intensity users and that it will not collect personal, private data.
- The new technology would be introduced by 2014. Small clubs with less than 15 machines would be exempt until 2018.
37 Responses to this article
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Susie September 27, 2011
Great article. Thank you for sharing your story Anonymous.
Having worked for an RSL club for a number of years I can tell you that the staff and management know exactly where their bread is buttered. They know full well that they make their money from the poor suckers who sit at the poker machines all day tippings their hard earned wages into the black hole. They turn a blind eye because it’s what pays their wages and keeps the club going.
Blowing their collective trumpets about sponsoring local sporting teams and donating money to schools and hospitals makes me sick. How many families are destroyed by pokie addiciton? Let’s talk more about that and less about how they supposedly contribute to the community.
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Mardie Johnson November 11, 2011
I am 73 ,I had six children I did my bit for Queen and Country..I
Is it not my right , to spend a couple hours at the club if I wish to ,no one makes you go , the clubs are not twisting my arms and making me go, I go because I am lonely for other peoples company my own age and interests , I don,t play pokies all the time, I sit in the fresh air have a coffee and a smoke in peace have I not earned the right to do that.,at some time we all have to be responsible for our own actions.
Why are there people wanting to hold your hand like a child crossing a road,trying to tell old people how they should spend their time and money.
Why am I told I can no longer sit in the sun, and have a smoke and coffee if I want to…no one wants smoke puffed on them while their eating ,me included,I would not do that..but I have rights too.If I want to have a coffee and a smoke at the same time I have no right to do that.in some municipality ,who made that rule,was it a self-righteous councilor,who thinks they know whats good for everyone.
What next,are old people supposed to sit in the rocker knitting until the end of time,give me a break
The bottom line is ,we all have to be responsible for our own actions.I dont think you can call this a free country any more,when there is people telling you how you should live
If pokies and smoking is that much of a problem ban them altogether , that would be the easy answer,
All the old ladies can go back to rocking in their chairs and knitting. then what are the do goods going to ban next.-
Royce January 18, 2012
I don’t care an awful lot about people who spend all their money on the pokies. Their kids and partners suffer though. They I care about. As a community we should ‘nanny’ the sad suckers who blow thier cash.
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Janine September 27, 2011
This is a terribly sad story. I don’t have a strong opinion either way on the pokie debate but I do wonder how a voluntary pre-commitment system would be effective – surely if you have an addiction to gambling you will set the highest limit possible and ignore flashing messages? I hope that the politicians also consider putting money into counselling and programs to support gamblers in beating their addiction full stop. While ever problem gamblers go into the clubs it’s hard to imagine them giving up the money eating pokies.
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Pam Harrison September 27, 2011
I have a friend who is probably going to lose her home because she borrowed against the equity for gambling at the pokies. It is a terrible situation. I also had a member of my immediate family who, many years ago, would drive home from work on payday and put her wages through the pokies. Her addiction was shocking. This is the cost of the profits for pokie venues. This is the cost our society doesn’t want to acknowledge. we only want the good stories.
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Joseph Mills September 27, 2011
I found this story very sad. I enjoyed the quality of the writing but the story itself brought tears to my eyes. My wife was a problem gambler for many years. It cost us more than just our finanical security. The damage it did to our family was the biggest cost.
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Sarah Watts September 27, 2011
I think Govt also needs to look at online gaming and betting which is not regulated or being covered by this legislation. It is even esaier to get caught up in as you don’t even have to leave home and ‘pretend’ you are going somewehere else, no one will see you doing it!! If this isn’t covered in legislation, once pokies are harder to get to, online gaming will really take over and cause even more heartache!
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Margaret September 27, 2011
A friend, who collected rents at a Real Estate Agency, spent her lunch hour at the local club, that soon became an after work activity and finally became her life. Her trouble started when her wages were insufficient to feed the hungry machines and she used the money she was collecting for the Agency to play them.
The club treated her very well and greeted her by name.
Eventually she was caught out by the Estate Agent, they told her if she repaid the money that they would not go to the Police.
She had to tell her husband, they sold the family home to repay the debt; the Real Estate Agent went to the Police she was prosecuted, she lost her job, her home, her pride, and had a police record.
That was not the end of it she and her husband moved interstate, all was well for a short time, but the gambling bug got to her once more and this time she lost her husband of 40 years. -
Permanently 23 September 27, 2011
Of all gambling revenue Australia-wide, FORTY PER CENT is derived from problem gamblers. Does that statistic not speak volumes, or what?
So the clubs fund local sporting teams and allow people to buy a cheap steak? Is that more important than tackling problem gambling?
The anti-pokie reforms campaign is embarrassing. Surely the data speaks for itself and it’s OBVIOUS reform is needed. I don’t feel sorry for the clubs at all. They’ve been preying on people for years. It’s about time they reigned it in.
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Permanently 23 September 27, 2011
Online gambling is such an insignificant issue at the moment – the rates of online gambling are incredibly tiny when compared to pokies.
Even if the restrictions push people towards online gambling, it’ll only be the case for those computer literate or with internet access. There is a large pool of vulnerable people who won’t have access to online gambling, which is a bit of a blessing really.
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sylvia kilby September 27, 2011
This story is prabably more common than we realise. Is it the gambling thats the problem or is it the stress that people have to deal with, or perhaps the lonelines or coping mechamism. Going to the club is about having people be nice to you, talk to you, give you the time of day. Maybe if we look at the reasons people feel the need to go to the club and play the pokies we would be looking at real gambling reform.
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Louisa September 27, 2011
There is evidence that mandatory precommitment works. None of the other reforms seems to have made much difference to the problem. I say try anything. I had to walk away from a relationship when my partner started stealing from me. I used to believe that love could conquer all. Now I’m not so innocent and that makes me very sad.
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Kmc September 27, 2011
Great article! The club’s campaign is deplorable and dishonest.
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MP September 29, 2011
This is a very sad, & all to frequent story, but how is government regulation going to help when this woman’s own family couldn’t stop her. I am so over the nanny state we live in. I’m all for helping people with problems but why shackle the rest of us down. A bit of personal responsibility please.
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Dramaqueen75 October 4, 2011
An interesting article in the Herald this morning, although hardly surprising, sadly.
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Kazarh January 17, 2012
I lived in the innerWEST and yrs ago seen a rundown club transformed into glass marbled pokie den….went to visit my dad at nelson bay…my dad told me the club had been in trouble?…geuss who had bought this club out, and this place is full of retired people cashed up after down sizing from the the city….I beleive after hrs of playing pokies they will hypmotize ! I played them for the first time about 14yrs ago…one gets to play the favourite, back then it was the black rino! travelling overland through in Africa , looking out at the acacia trees I had the pokie urge! walking around Franklins many yrs ago their was music playing and in the background of thr music was the sound that comes from the entranted forrest / the cute mushrooms that blinked their eyes!. I realized at the time this is high order marketing…I dont go to clubs or pubs anymore I worked hard for my money and would like it to work for me now….people do go there cause they are lonely and those bloody things become a very bad friend that take and take, not everyone is strong and the strong need to speekout for the vunerable…where does the lotto and scratchie money go….55cent wasto support hospitals, $1?…$6 was for the opera house……it was to go into the community…just like clubs were invented for the community to socialize not gamble…
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Bern January 18, 2012
Sorry but I have to stand up and say that nobody makes someone else play the poker machines. I am an occasional player and occasionally spend too much on the machines, but … where does personal repsonsibility come into all of this? Clubs (and pubs) are businesses – out to make money from the moment you step into the place. Almost every placement of every item in a club is designed to encourage people to spend money in the club, just as is the placement of items in a supermarket.
At least clubs have to make donations to community organisations with their poker machine dividends – hotels do not have to contribute to gaming machine benefit funds. For the record, neither I nor my family work in clubs but I am sick of people blaming clubs for their own spending on poker machines. When I spend too much on the pokies, there is only one person to blame and that is me, nobody else.
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Hooty January 18, 2012
My Aunt, took her own life as a result of a $50,000 debt due largely to gambling.
Whilst suffering from depression did not help her to think clearly through the situation, venues that make it all too easy at any time to use a pokermachine, perpetuate sad scenarios such as these.
Intervention from her family could not help the situation, and it is impossible to watch someone 24 hours day.
Further to this our governments are so reliant on revenue from gambling http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/13686/technicalpaper10.pdf
that if it was controlled, what other public services would suffer as a result?
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julie January 18, 2012
Pokies are appalling machines. Designed specifically to maximise addictive behaviour and located in psychological prisons. Those who profit from others misery are all the same- including speculative developers and club presidents. All motivated by greed at the expense of others, with no social conscience at all. They hide behind a facade of ‘doing good’ which is as transparent as it is ridiculous.
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Dee January 18, 2012
Do we even need RSL Clubs at all, I personally find them revolting….
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Kate May 23, 2012
Thank you for sharing your story. It is all to common. Too often people who experience pokie related harm – problem gamblers, friends, carers – feel constrained to secrecy because of the stigma. Stories like this are important to be told and heard.
Maybe one day there could be a strong and varied group of people who are able and prepared to go public collectively – become a consumer lobby group – or something like that.
There is power and support in collective action and maybe such a strategy would have significant impact on Government policy and industry operations.
If anyone is interested perhaps they could say something here and we could begin. We could work collaboratively with the groups like the InterChurch Taskforce, or the Consumer Health Forum. The story is there, waiting to be written.
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Pat June 18, 2012
For those banging on about personal responsibility, yeah that’s all well and good but at the end of the day we are communal by nature and no-one is entirely independent. Try telling the kids who can’t go on school excursions, afford proper text books, or take a trip to the movies that we can’t do anything to help you because it’s all on your addicted parents head. Personal responsibility is about choice, and at the end of the day this kids don’t have the ‘choice’ to seek new parents yet you still insist they pay for their parents mistakes.
Furthermore, I thought we were living in an ‘enlightened’ age where people recognize that there are such mental afflictions as addictions and that they are caused by such things as stress, social isolation and the like – or has the last 50 years of medical research into these topics been for nothing?
By the way, I speak from experience. I remember growing up as a kid spending copious amounts of time at smoke-filled TABS with my young sister so my father could place a bet. Now his older and running off to the Pokies. By the way he’s been on a carer’s pension all of my life (looking after my chronically ill mother) and his sojourns severly impact on us all financially. -
K June 30, 2012
What I find interesting is that the reforms considered don’t appear to tackle the payout design of the machines. If a machine must payout 75% of the money put in every time the betting input reached a certain amount such as $200 wouldn’t that reduce how much a person could loose in one sitting. If a person sits there for that long and feeds $200 or more into the machine it would pay back the bulk and the cycle begins again. I realize this means that it would take along time to reach bigger payouts if only say 5% of the bettings accumulate for big pays out. If everyone knows the cycle of payout people can still try for the more remote big win but at least walk out with enough for food and rent if they don’t get the big win.
I know this probably sounds too simplistic but I know of people who have pumped a thousand or more in a machine and not had any real sort of win during that cycle of betting. The more a person has put in to a machine the harder it is for them to walk away and the more inclined they are to keep feeding more money in. These things should have a limit on the timing of the cycle of 90% return that they are suppose to deliver.
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turk December 19, 2012
When I started to read this story for a second I thought it was my friends story because they are so identical.
My friends grand father had past away and as a result the nan Inherits the house and sells it to my friends parents for $200,000.00.
With the money she spent a small amount on the kitchen where she will still live after selling it.
The majority of the money when into the pokies in the local RSL within 2 years. The money spent had paid for the renovation of the entire second floor of the club.
When the family asked why spend all your time and money in the RSL she said they are very nice to me all the time and tell me I’m a very friendly person.
My friends nan has lost all her money she has no assets and is on the old age pension. I cannot understand why no one in the club never approached her and asked if she was ok or that she might be losing too much money(up to $2000.00 a week for pensioner). IM told that’s she is still waiting every fortnight to receive her pension money to go play pokies at the same club.
I cannot believe these local clubs have they no shame they are watching widowers of men who died for this country lose there money to pokies.
Is this what serving men and Women should except from RSL clubs. Clubs claim they are helping the community on the contrary they are destroying.
The government needs to step in and make some real reform.
I don’t understand why nothing has been done since the birth of poker machine addiction has been around for 50 years.
These machines are designed to get people addicted there no doubt about it so JULIA do something! -
Linda Robinson December 19, 2012
I know a lot of people who go to the local RSL for a cheap meal on a regular basis and who don’t ever gamble;they like the social aspect.some people might have lunch once a week or fortnight and have a strict limit of $5. Does this mean they can’t enjoy a social night out?
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kevin mudford January 21, 2013
ha 1 nwas hooked for 5 ys pokies they are a curse any one who plays them is a mug end of story they will beat youi all the time even if you have the odd win , kevin mudford
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chris60 April 1, 2013
Pokies are highly addictive and many people rely on them to distract from feelings of distress brought on by depression and mental illness, separation, death, unemployment or other loss. I am currently “weaning” off regular high playing that began after a relationship breakdown sent me into depression. Odd thing was I used to play them without being hooked, and could give or take using the machines when I entered a venue. Players are vulnerable during points of personal crisis, and maybe more resources need to be provided to offset social isolation and loneliness in a fractured community. Where can elderly and single people congregate that provides some entertainment and a sense of communal interaction? I chose the pokies as they seemed safer and “cleaner” than the pubs. Had there been other recreational centres that welcomed me and offered a sense of belonging I would have gone there… and paid to sit among other people. Maybe part of the problem is the limited ‘safe’ communal gathering points and opportunities to deal with this distressing sense of isolation and loneliness. A sensible government would open new community centre with stimulating forms of entertainment – such as cards and computer or video games – and charge people an entry fee… which would offset the damage brought by pokie addiction by nipping the reason why people enter venues in the bud. In the end, it was not the lure of winning money, but the chance to distract from painful thoughts and feelings of loneliness, that attracted me into the clubs. Many of the older players are merely seeking somewhere to have some fun and be noticed and heard rather than rot alone at home. The source of addiction is often pain, and bringing in healthier measures to alleviate this distress seems cheaper, wiser and more productive.
