If this is gambling let it die

The arguments employed by the SANFL are reminiscent of the scam perpetuated in the U.S. by the dying Racing Industry: "we need slots to survive!"

How many on Beacon Hill repeated the same phony arguments to defend predatory gambling legislation last year? And how many opposed even sensible restrictions proposed to make a Bad Bill less bad?

Loss limits? Self-Exclusion?

Regardless of the continent, regardless of the game, the same flawed logic is employed to justify destruction:

Penberthy: If this is gambling let it die
David Penberthy
From: The Advertiser

IF the SANFL relies on poker machines to stay in business then it deseves to go, writes David Penberthy.
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THERE is a punchy two-word response to claims from the sporting community about the multi-million-dollar losses they will sustain if the Federal Government presses ahead with measures to tackle gambling addiction. Sucked in.

For sheer intellectual laziness and candid self-interest, documents don't get much worse than the formal submission by the South Australian National Football League to the parliamentary inquiry on gaming reform.

In summary, the SANFL argues that the measures to reduce problem gambling will cost the state's football clubs $7 million a year.

The document is framed around inertia in that it argues for the status quo, rejecting all measures such as compelling gamblers to register with clubs before they spend money on poker machines and to specify how much money they want to spend if they choose to do so.

That measure has been criticised by anti-gambling lobbyists and MPs such as independent Senator Nick Xenophon for being too half-hearted, in that it still gives gamblers the option of not setting any limit at all.

Even with that inherent weakness, the SANFL claims that by merely making gamblers stop and think about how much money they want to spend in any given session, millions will be lost to the clubs.

You have to at least give them credit for their tasteless honesty. Basically, their position is that desperately addicted problem gamblers are such big cash cows for the footy clubs they should really be encouraged to keep on gambling, rather than spending their money on frivolous items such as bread.

It would be akin to British American Tobacco opposing cigarette warnings on the basis that they need people to get addicted to nicotine and remain ignorant of the health risks of smoking in order to maintain profits.

I grew up with SANFL football and still love it today. I've got the fixture on the fridge and will be going to as many Sturt games as I can this year.

I will also be cheering for any team that can prevent Centrals from winning another damned flag, with the obvious exception of Norwood.

But I won't be cheering for any club so bereft of ideas it will argue the only way to maintain profits is by continuing to leech the life out of pokie addicts - especially when the code ran successfully for decades without these damned machines.

The relationship between these clubs and their communities reminds me of those parents who suffer that bizarre condition known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, where they will deliberately harm their baby and then come to its aid like some loving Florence Nightingale.

The clubs do a terrific job running community programs and simply providing entertainment and opportunities for young people who are looking for something to do.

Many of these kids come from homes where the household budget has been battered by gaming addiction.

Clubs pay for things that make the community better with money raised from something that makes the community worse.

This was the perverse economic logic that the owners of South Sydney rugby league club Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes a Court tried to smash a few years ago when they declared that the Rabbitohs' new leagues club would not contain a single poker machine.

The pair were blindsided by their own board and the move was blocked. Their defeat was a victory for the long-standing culture of lazy revenue-raising within League where, unlike the AFL, which has historically had much more aggressive membership-based campaigns, clubs have sat back in the knowledge gaming revenue will keep pouring in.

As Holmes a Court said at the time, the perversity of it all is that a club such as Souths has such strong and proud working-class roots yet it makes a significant portion of its money from the misery of working-class people.

It then funds programs aimed at combating the very social problems it helps create. Just dumb.

One of the other measures the Federal Government is considering is a daily $250 withdrawal limit on ATMs at clubs (except casinos).

Should anyone need to gamble more than $250 a day they would need to go and find another ATM or go to a bank.

This, too, is opposed by the SANFL. It must be part of the service - making sure people who live in Salisbury or Hackham can sink at least one-quarter of their average weekly wage in one hit into a poker machine.

The SANFL's strategy, if you can call it that, is underpinned by an emotional call to defend the 1800 people it employs, the 891 clubs it represents, by protecting the $28 million it makes from 400 poker machines as part of its annual $118 million revenue base.

Yes, we get all that. It's just a weak argument.

Tobacco companies used to employ more people. A lot of gun retailers hit the wall after the Port Arthur massacre. The Australian whaling industry ain't what it used to be. Chimney sweeping suffered when child labour was made illegal.

If the underpinning of your employment damages the social fabric, a sob story about jobs won't wash.

It's also a lazy argument.

The SANFL ran for years without a single poker machine.

The West Australian Football League does so today.

Instead of urging the Government to retain an industry that is destroying people's lives, the SANFL should look for new revenue streams. The public can do its bit by taking out club memberships.

It's also an argument that can be matched with other more compelling figures.

Such as the average amount of money spent annually by problem gamblers is $21,000.

Or that three-quarters of Australia's problem gamblers, who are estimated to number up to 160,000, are pokie addicts.

And most of them live in the less affluent parts of Oz.

The SANFL is so massively behind in the public arena that it's the equivalent of being 10 goals down at three-quarter time and kicking into the breeze.

In the 1970s an Italian newspaper ran the awesome headline - "If this is football let it die" - to convey its disgust at the deaths of fans in hooligan-related violence.

The same sentiment is guiding the public commentary on the SANFL, with one reader saying this week: "Goodbye SANFL and good riddance if that is the only way you can run the business."

Harsh but fair. The public won't support a business that is framed so largely on human misery.