Targeting the poor

In the US, the Gambling Industry is more subtle.

They locate Slot Barns in poor neighborhoods and call it JOB CREATION!

Codes need to kick their gambling addiction
Richard Hinds.

This is sport walking its social responsibility talk. As it does in other areas such as charitable causes, community fitness programs and - if you remove some awful exceptions, such as the NRL's embarrassing cheerleading squadrons - even women's rights.

But, when it comes to social responsibility, sport has a bottom line. One horribly exposed by the sad dependency of the leading codes on poker machine revenue.

When Julia Gillard abandoned her pledge for meaningful poker machine reform this week, the AFL and NRL quietly toasted a significant ''victory''. Unencumbered by $1 limits and mandatory pre-commitment, the aces would keep spinning in the clubs. The only mild threat is Gillard's stalling device - an absurd trial in mostly middle-class Canberra, from where anyone who wants to dodge pre-commitment and put their entire pay packet down the slot can drive a few kilometres to neighbouring Queanbeyan.

Confronted by sad tales of gambling addiction, and well aware that poker machines rob those who can least afford to lose, you would think our ''socially responsible'' leagues would have found alternative revenue streams. Just as they did when cigarette advertising was banned.

Perhaps the football codes cannot help others tackle their gambling addiction because they are still battling their own. The sick dependency on revenue from poker machines and corporate bookmakers diminishes everyone who is involved. Even the Channel Nine commentators who gave their scripted support for the poker machine lobby during the NRL finals.

The lobbyists rhetoric about poker machines providing ''freedom of choice'', and ''paying for community facilities'' is so blatantly self-serving it barely warrants response. Not when you have spoken with the administrator of an investment fund, who admits his company cynically targets the lowest demographic. Put the machines in the new estates with low-cost housing and little alternative entertainment or public transport. Then watch the punters swarm in like bees to the honeypot.

Or if you have lived, as I once did, in the same street as a large, 24-hour poker-machine venue. See the punters wander out in the morning, eyes still spinning like the reels upon which they have been fixated. See them wander slowly away, pockets empty but still entrapped. They are seldom gone for long. They'll find the money somewhere.

Which is why it is sickening when the lobbyists and opportunists hide behind weasel words such as ''entertainment complex'' and ''community hub''. Pocket the money, but call the pokies what they are: a poor tax.

A tax on the very people rugby league, particularly, purports to champion. The so-called ''battlers'' who they are encouraging, with ever louder voices, to buy memberships, merchandise and television subscriptions.

The hard sell on memberships often comes with a tinge of emotional blackmail. ''Do you support the game?'', ''Do you love your club?''.

But when it comes to poker machines that love and care is not returned. Sorry, we're just putting on the show. That money you couldn't afford to lose? That's your responsibility.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/codes-need-to-kick-their-gambling-addiction-20120127-1qlc0.html#ixzz1klCFbP4A