tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/gambling-series-739/articlesGambling series – The Conversation2014-10-28T09:37:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/323462014-10-28T09:37:46Z2014-10-28T09:37:46ZWill gambling be good for the people of Massachusetts? The evidence suggests not<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60428/original/d82sfzg3-1412088851.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An artist's rendering of Wynn's proposed $1.6 billion casino on the Mystic River, Everett.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The [upcoming vote](http://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Casino_Repeal_Initiative,<em>Question_3</em>(2014) on whether to scrap plans to allow casino resorts in Massachusetts fits into a broader pattern of individuals and pressure groups resisting the expansion of commercial gambling in both the US and abroad. </p>
<p>The reaction comes after three decades of states around the world legislating to introduce more sophisticated and pervasive forms of gambling, in a move that marries <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-4446.12050/abstract">the revenue needs of governments</a> with the industry’s desire for profits. </p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21188851">mutually beneficial relationship</a> between states and gambling has created a <a href="http://theconversation.com/who-wins-from-big-gambling-in-australia-22930">powerful multi-national industry</a> equivalent in scale to Big Tobacco, which researchers recently dubbed “Big Gambling.”</p>
<p>Proponents of gambling, and particularly large casinos, argue that increased taxes, as well as job and wealth creation, contribute to the revitalization of local economies and pay for a range of important public services. </p>
<p>Such a case has been made for the planned resort casino in Boston, with supporters emphasizing the <a href="http://ggbnews.com/issue/vol-12-no-36-september-22-20142015/article/wynning-bid-in-boston">boost to tourism and the creation of local jobs</a> and a transport infrastructure that the billion dollar venture would bring.</p>
<p>However, critics point out that gambling only redistributes existing money, but does not generate much new wealth. In fact, it can have a detrimental effect on the surrounding economy as <a href="http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_34552_en.pdf">leisure spending is diverted</a> away from local businesses. Every dollar spent in a casino is a dollar that might have been spent in local restaurants, cinemas or shops. </p>
<p>Casinos tend only to deliver economic benefits when they attract <a href="http://www.commonwealthmagazine.org/Voices/Back-Story/2014/Summer/010-Running-the-casino-numbers.aspx#.VEZ7pvnF-8Q">international high-rollers</a> rather than locals. High-rollers spend – and lose – large sums of money that benefit the region. Locals, by contrast, simply deplete the more limited resources of residents, to the cost of the local economy as a whole. Australian research, for example, has found that only around <a href="http://www.auscasinos.com/assets/files/pdf/TheAustralianCasinoIndustry-EconomicContribution-0203.pdf">5% of Australian casino customers are international tourists</a>, contributing some 18% of revenue, while locals make up the majority of players – as well as <a href="http://theconversation.com/what-are-the-odds-new-casinos-lead-to-social-harm-19161">the majority of revenue</a>.</p>
<h2>Problem gambling</h2>
<p>Alongside these (contested) economic benefits, researchers have shown that the growth of commercial gambling also brings a range of negative impacts for individuals, their families and communities. </p>
<p>Problem and pathological gambling has been recognised as a mental health issue since the 1980s, and was <a href="http://www.dsm5.org/Pages/Default.aspx">recently re-categorised</a> by the American Psychiatric Association as an addiction. Surveys from around the world estimate that between 0.6 and 4% of people experience problems with gambling, with the <a href="http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_34552_en.pdf">highest figures concentrated</a> among the economically disadvantaged, ethnic minorities and the young. </p>
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<span class="caption">The proposed Wynn casino is likely to make more money from locals than high-rollers.</span>
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<p>Although these numbers may appear relatively small, such players account for a large proportion of gambling losses, with some studies suggesting that between <a href="http://ann.sagepub.com/content/556/1/153">a third and a half of casino profits</a> come from this group. </p>
<p>Those suffering from gambling problems experience debt, bankruptcy, the loss of their jobs, homes and relationships, as well as <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/gambling-2009">depression and suicide</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/62216/">My own research</a> has shown that the problems associated with gambling extend well beyond the individual, and ripple out to affect their wider families, workplaces and communities. </p>
<p>The loss of money and time involved in excess gambling impacts gamblers’ social relationships in a range of ways. Relationships and marriages can be undermined or destroyed through lack of trust and loss of shared funds. Workplaces suffer from employee absenteeism, lost productivity and fraud, while the children of people with gambling problems do less well at school, and are more likely to truant and develop gambling problems themselves as they get older.</p>
<p>Research carried out in the US has found that proximity to casinos increases the levels of these problems in the local population, with those living within ten miles of a casino having approximately <a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/266349/neighborhood-and-gambling.pdf">double the rates of gambling problems</a> than those who live further afield. </p>
<p>Certain games are more strongly associated with these kinds of negative social impacts than others; in particular electronic gaming machines which have a high “event frequency” which makes it possible to bet – and lose – very quickly.</p>
<h2>A tax on the poor</h2>
<p>Western-style casinos, such as the one proposed in Massachusetts, are dominated by these machines, which account for some <a href="http://theconversation.com/what-are-the-odds-new-casinos-lead-to-social-harm-19161">40% of casino profits</a>, as well as a contributing to <a href="http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_34551_en.pdf">high levels of problem gambling</a>.</p>
<p>As the <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ngisc/index.html.">National Gambling Impact Study Commission</a> found, the expansion of gambling when a new casino comes into town is seen by some residents as undermining the quality of life, damaging local businesses and bringing about increased levels of crime, traffic and anti-social behaviour. </p>
<p>Research from <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/230779781_Modelling_vulnerability_to_gambling_related_harm_how_disadvantage_predicts_gambling_losses">Australia</a>, <a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/73285/7/73285.pdf">Great Britain</a> and <a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/266349/neighborhood-and-gambling.pdf">America</a> has also consistently shown that it is low income and ethnic minority groups and communities who are most affected by the global spread of gambling.</p>
<p>Such a distribution reveals that the revenue raised through gambling is a <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Selling_hope.html?id=VtuxAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">highly regressive</a>, and damaging, form of taxation.</p>
<p>It is against this backdrop that groups and communities have begun to mobilize to counter the spread of gambling. Massachusetts’ “Repeal the Casino Deal” group has its counterpart in Britain’s “Campaign for Fairer Gambling”, and Australian politician Nick Xenophon’s single ticket “no pokies” policy. (“Pokies” is the Australian term for slot machines.)</p>
<p>As awareness of negative social impacts grows, local resistance is increasingly demanding that legislatures re-think the consequences of the global expansion of gambling. </p>
<p><em>This article is part of a series on gambling in America. You can read the rest of the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/gambling-in-america">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerda Reith has received funding for her research from a range of organisations including the Economic and Social Research Council, the Scottish Government and the Responsibility in Gambling Trust. All her research is independent, and the views expressed in this article are her own. She is affiliated with The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board - the independent body that advises the Gambling Commission </span></em></p>The [upcoming vote](http://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Casino_Repeal_Initiative,Question_3(2014) on whether to scrap plans to allow casino resorts in Massachusetts fits into a broader pattern of individuals…Gerda Reith, Professor of Social Science, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/20852011-06-29T20:56:25Z2011-06-29T20:56:25ZPokies punters and taxpayers both lose when govts and industry get too cosy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1999/original/pokies2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=100%2C63%2C3827%2C2545&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taxpayers were shortchanged $3billion in Victoria's ill-fated auction of licences last year.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – How do pokies cause harm? People addicted to the pokies lose one hell of a lot of money. </p>
<p>Because they lose one hell of a lot of money they do not eat well, get into debt, lose their homes, suffer psychological trauma and do desperate things like commit crimes and suicide.</p>
<p>Last year the Productivity Commission said that problem gamblers lost 40% of total pokies losses around the country. Add those at risk of becoming problem gamblers, and the figure rises to 60%.</p>
<p>It’s just a harmless bit of fluttering fun if you listen to the poker-machine industry (the gambling corporates, clubs and pubs). It’s all a bit of entertainment.</p>
<p>Yet it is hard to think of other forms of ordinary street-level entertainment in which you can lose $1200 to $1500 an hour. That is standard for Australia’s high-intensity pokies. </p>
<p>If you spent eight hours of harmlessly entertaining fluttering, you could easily blow $10,000. Now that would be serious fun.</p>
<p>People do lose big money. People with gambling problems lose $5-7 billion plus a year, according to the Productivity Commission. </p>
<p>Their families, friends, employers and the community all suffer. It’s not really that much fun at all. In fact it’s deadly – and not in the indigenous sense of the word.</p>
<p>Sorry, that’s wrong. Worse, it’s un-Australian. Of course, the poker-machine industry is having a hairy-arsed, fun-filled, whale of a time. </p>
<p>Its state government partners are, too. Between them they pocket the $12 billion lost per year, including the $5-7 billion of harm-causing losses by problems gamblers and those at risk.</p>
<p>Let’s not mince words. The poker-machine industry and state governments profit from that harm.</p>
<p>There was a time when Victoria’s minister for pokies, Michael O’Brien, would come along to conferences on gambling harm. He would sit and listen earnestly. He would criticise former ministers for pokies for not doing enough for problem gamblers.</p>
<p>His less squeamish colleagues would be on the phone to gambling researchers (including this one) hoping for tid-bits of pokies muck to rake.</p>
<p>Now, of course, shoulder to shoulder with their State mates around the country they are trying to stop the Wilkie mandatory pre-commitment scheme. It’s untested. It won’t work. It will hit the pokies industry, particularly pubs and clubs.</p>
<p>Michael O’Brien chips in that Victoria’s voluntary scheme and other problem-gambling measures are the best in the country. What’s more, they won’t materially affect the pubs and clubs.</p>
<p>Sorry? Run that by me again, as they say. You can do something about the $5 billion-plus harm-causing losses by problem gamblers without reducing industry revenues and pokies taxes? Magic puddings all round!</p>
<p>Of course, the ritual incantations by state governments against the Wilkie plan are fatuous nonsense, and they know it. </p>
<p>If they weren’t so cheek by jowl with the pokies industry they might instead be campaigning for tax redistribution from the Commonwealth to compensate for the hit to their budgets. Instead, they say, they will peddle their wretchedly bad argumentation all the way to the High Court.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Victoria’s Auditor-General tabled a <a href="http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/latest_reports/2010-11/20110629_electronic_gaming.aspx">report</a> in Victorian Parliament yesterday slamming last year’s auction of poker-machine licences. Most of these licences were snaffled by gambling’s big end of town. </p>
<p>The Bruce Mathieson’s ALH Group joint venture with Woolworths picked up one-third, ironically in an auction purported to increase competition after the Tabcorp-Tattersall’s duopoly expires next year.</p>
<p>The upshot was that the licences for each of Victoria’s 27,000 machines, which generate about $2.7 billion revenue per year, sold for an average of $37,000. </p>
<p>That is, the average revenue generated by each machine – about $100,000 per annum – could cover its licence price in about four months and 13 days. </p>
<p>In the words of the Auditor General: “The revenue obtained from the sale of the entitlements was around $3 billion less than the assessed fair market value of these assets [about $4.1 billion]. </p>
<p>"As a result of this very significant difference, the allocation largely failed to meet its intended financial outcome of capturing a greater share of the industry’s supernormal profits … Large venue operators, rather than the community, are the beneficiaries of this windfall gain … </p>
<p>"The industry paid $980 million for the right to operate EGMs over a ten-year period. This is equivalent to around a third of the total revenue generated by EGMs in a single year, and a quarter of the estimated fair market values of the entitlements. We valued the EGM entitlements in the range of $3.7 billion to $4.5 billion, with a mid-point of $4.1 billion.”</p>
<p>That just about says it all, except for one thing. Juxtapose the phrase ‘supernormal profits’ with the down-to-earth, back-slapping clubbiness of the industry’s TV and other ads.</p>
<p>What did Matthew’s gospel say? “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.”</p>
<p><strong><em>This is part five of The Conversation’s Gambling in Australia series. Read part one: <a href="http://theconversation.com/gambling-in-australian-culture-more-than-just-a-day-at-the-races-1706">Gambling in Australian culture: more than just a day at the races</a>; part two: <a href="http://theconversation.com/promotion-of-gambling-short-changes-australian-sport-and-its-fans-2013">Promotion of gambling short-changes Australian sport … and its fans</a>; part three: <a href="http://theconversation.com/get-rich-or-die-trying-when-gambling-becomes-a-problem-1479">Get rich or die trying: when gambling becomes a problem</a>; and part four: <a href="http://theconversation.com/want-to-win-at-gambling-use-your-head-694">Want to win at gambling? Use your head</a></em>.</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/2085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Doughney has previously received funding from the Victorian Local Governance Association and local councils to research the social and economic impacts of poker machines. He has also appeared as an expert witness for a number of Victorian local governments in poker-machine licencing cases.</span></em></p>GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – How do pokies cause harm? People addicted to the pokies lose one hell of a lot of money. Because they lose one hell of a lot of money they do not eat well, get into debt, lose their…James Doughney, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/6942011-06-29T03:07:10Z2011-06-29T03:07:10ZWant to win at gambling? Use your head<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1944/original/head.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C76%2C500%2C350&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When you know the numbers, things get a whole lot easier.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roberto Bouza</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – Some say “punting is a mug’s game”. But is this always true, or can an astute gambler make long-term profits?</p>
<p>Certainly not from casino games. Casinos make profits by paying less than they should on winning bets. A roulette wheel has 37 numbers, so a gambler who bets a dollar has a 1/37 chance of winning and should receive back $37 on a winning number. </p>
<p>But the casino pays only $36. </p>
<p>On average, a gambler loses $1 for every $37 they bet: a loss of 2.7%. </p>
<p>This is the cost of playing the game and it’s the profit the casino makes often called the “house percentage”. </p>
<h2>Houses of all sizes</h2>
<p>For casino games such as roulette, Keno and poker machines, the house percentage can be calculated mathematically, and in spite of many proposed betting systems, is an immutable and unchangeable number. No strategy can be used by the punter to make the game profitable.</p>
<p>While gamblers may experience short-term lucky streaks, in the long run they will lose this predetermined percentage of their wagers. But a sensible casino gambler should at least be familiar with the house percentages:</p>
<p>Betting the win line at craps at 1.4%, or red or black at roulette at 2.7%, might be a better option than Keno or Lotto with a house percentage of over 40%. </p>
<p>Let’s be clear here: for every $100 bet through Tattslotto or Powerball, the “house” only pays out $60, keeping $40 for itself.</p>
<p>But sports betting is different. </p>
<p>In a horse race, the chance of winning (and hence the price for a winning bet) is determined subjectively, either by the bookmaker or by the weight of money invested by the public. </p>
<p>If 20% of the amount a bookmaker takes on a race is for the favourite, the public is effectively estimating that particular horse’s chance of winning at one in five. But the bookmaker might set the horse’s winning price at $4.50 (for every $1 bet, the punter gets $4.50 back), giving the bookie a house percentage of 10%. </p>
<p>But a trainer, or jockey with inside knowledge (or statistician with a mathematical model based on past data), may estimate this same horse’s chances at one in three. If the savvy punter is correct, then for every $3 bet they average $4.50 return. </p>
<p>A logical punter looks for value – bets that pay more than a fair price as determined by their true probability of winning. There are several reasons why sports betting lends itself to punters seeking value bets.</p>
<h2>A sporting chance</h2>
<p>In general, more outcomes in a game allow for a higher house percentage. With two even outcomes (betting on a head or tail with a single coin toss, say), a fair price would be $2. </p>
<p>The operator might be able to pay out as little $1.90, giving a house percentage of 5%, but anything less than this would probably see little interest from gamblers. </p>
<p>But a Keno game with 20 million outcomes might only pay $1 million for a winning $1 bet, rather than a fair $20,000,000. A payout of $1 million gives a staggering house percentage of 95%. </p>
<p>Traditionally, sports betting was restricted to horse, harness and dog racing – events with several outcomes that allowed house percentages of around 15%-20%. </p>
<p>With the extension into many other team and individual sports, betting on which of the two participants would win reduced a bookmaker’s take to as little as 3%-4%.</p>
<p>Competition reduces this further. Only the state-run totalisator (an automated system which like Tattslotto, determined the winning prices after the event, thus always ensuring the legislated house percentage), and a handful of on-course bookmakers were originally allowed to offer bets on horse racing, whereas countless internet operators now compete.</p>
<p>Betfair even allows punters to bet against each other, effectively creating millions of “bookmakers”. </p>
<h2>Head or heart</h2>
<p>Many sports punters bet with their hearts, not their heads. This reduces the prices of popular players or teams, thereby increasing the price of their opponents. The low margins and extensive competition even allow punters to sometimes find arbitrage opportunities (where betting on both sides with different bookmakers allows a profit whoever wins). </p>
<p>To overcome their heart, and lack of inside knowledge, many mathematicians create mathematical and statistical models based on past data and results to predict the chances of sports outcomes. They prove the veracity of their models by testing (either on past data or in real time) whether they would profit if the predictions were used for betting.</p>
<p>Academics call the ability to show a profit the “inefficiency of betting markets”, and there are many papers to suggest sports markets are inefficient. Of course the more successful have a vested interest in keeping their methods to themselves and may not publicise their results. </p>
<p>Astute punters can make sports betting profitable in the long term. But the profits made by the plethora of sports bookmakers indicate that most sports punters are not that astute.</p>
<p><strong><em>This is part four of The Conversation’s Gambling in Australia series. Read part one: <a href="http://theconversation.com/gambling-in-australian-culture-more-than-just-a-day-at-the-races-1706">Gambling in Australian culture: more than just a day at the races</a>; part two: <a href="http://theconversation.com/promotion-of-gambling-short-changes-australian-sport-and-its-fans-2013">Promotion of gambling short-changes Australian sport … and its fans</a>; and part three: <a href="http://theconversation.com/get-rich-or-die-trying-when-gambling-becomes-a-problem-1479">Get rich or die trying: when gambling becomes a problem</a></em>.</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Clarke provides AFL football predictions to Smartgambler.com.au who use the predictions in a package sold to punters.</span></em></p>GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – Some say “punting is a mug’s game”. But is this always true, or can an astute gambler make long-term profits? Certainly not from casino games. Casinos make profits by paying less…Stephen Clarke, Professor of Statistics, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/20132011-06-28T04:22:06Z2011-06-28T04:22:06ZPromotion of gambling short-changes Australian sport … and its fans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1939/original/aapone-20110626000327637888-afl_carlton_wc_eagles-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some sporting organisations have called for veto powers on "exotic" betting.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Castro/AAPimage</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – Australians spend about $20 billion every year gambling. This level of expenditure is, according to The Economist, the <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/05/gambling">highest in the world</a> on a per capita basis. </p>
<p>Some would argue this reflects Australian’s love of a bet. It’s more likely that what it reflects is Australia’s highly accessible gambling markets.</p>
<p>Australia’s 200,000 poker machines consume close to 60% of the gambling dollar. A long way down the list, but catching up fast, is sports betting, which in 2008-09 was <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/gambling-2009/report">estimated by the Productivity Commission</a> to constitute about 1.2% of Australia’s gambling market – $230 million in expenditure.</p>
<p>Most wagering is still on horses. But the sound and fury around sports betting has grown fast, and it’s now worth closer to $400 million. </p>
<p>This rapid growth was the <a href="http://www.landers.com.au/Publications/Archive/Publicationdetail/tabid/338/ArticleID/211/Default.aspx">result of a successful challenge</a> against WA legislation by Betfair, a betting exchange operator, half owned by Packer interests and licensed in Tasmania. </p>
<p>In 2008, the High Court determined it was unconstitutional to prohibit interstate operations by such gambling operators. This meant that online gambling operators licensed in small jurisdictions (notably the Northern Territory) could expand their operations into states where they were not licensed. </p>
<p>The result was a scramble for market share, utilising aggressive sponsorship and advertising, including sports sponsorship and deals with governing bodies. </p>
<h2>A different style of bet</h2>
<p>This growth is not uncontroversial. Earlier this month, sporting organisations <a href="http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-sport/sports-set-to-clamp-down-on-exotic-bets-20110608-1fs6c.html">called for veto powers</a> on some types of “exotic” or “spot” bets, such as how many no-balls might be bowled in a particular over during a cricket match. </p>
<p>These types of bets are easily corruptible, and have already lead to scandals in international cricket and in Australia, the NRL. </p>
<p>A couple of weeks before that, state and federal gambling Ministers declared that unless in-call promotion of odds ceased within 12 months, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/27/3228975.htm?site=centralvic">legislation banning it would be introduced.</a> Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lift-your-game-on-pokies-trio-urges-20110619-1ga53.html">already proposed legislation</a> covering both practices.</p>
<h2>Clearing up sport</h2>
<p>Problems with sports betting are at least two-fold. The first area of concern relates to the possibility of corruption, damaging a sport’s integrity and leading to a loss of confidence among fans and participants. </p>
<p>The impact of such scandals has been profound in some sports, notably international cricket, but also, in Australia, with the NRL. </p>
<p>Players’ reputations are trashed, and the sport’s administrators have to play catch-up to demonstrate to the fans that corruption has been eliminated. </p>
<p>But doubts often remain, which can significantly damage the enjoyment previously experienced by those who love their particular game.</p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly from a public health perspective is how the promotion of sports betting can influence people to look on it as a necessary element of their enjoyment of the game, normalising gambling via its connection with sporting heroes and highly entertaining elite sport. </p>
<h2>It’s all about the money</h2>
<p>Professional sporting codes present massive marketing opportunities. The TV rights for AFL <a href="http://www.news.com.au/business/afl-announces-1bn-tv-rights-deal/story-e6frfm1i-1226046325694">were recently sold</a> for a record $1.25 billion, an amount that underscores the importance of the code to the marketing strategy of many significant companies.</p>
<p>Some sports bodies have defended gambling sponsorship on the basis that it permits the code to scrutinise bookmaker’s accounts and detect dubious patterns of betting (reflecting some corruptly-obtained inside information) and bets made by prescribed individuals (players, officials, and so on). </p>
<p>Of course, this information could be readily obtained via legislation without entering into a commercial partnership. Indeed, sports could also be provided with a legislatively prescribed share of gambling’s proceeds, without sponsorship or marketing being involved.</p>
<p>At present, sports betting is probably not providing a vast stream of revenue to sporting codes. It’s estimated that commercial “partnerships” between the AFL and gambling operators are worth between $2 and $3 million to the league itself. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, some AFL and NRL clubs promote sports betting heavily, with logos adorning their guernseys, links on their websites to bookies, and frequent and unavoidable advertising on TV, radio and at the grounds. </p>
<p>Victorian AFL clubs alone made $30million from poker machine operations in 2009-10, and changes to the regulatory system in Victoria mean that will grow to more than $63 million by 2012-13. </p>
<p>Sports betting will have to grow significantly to match that. But the impact it may have on the emerging generation of sports fans will be profound. </p>
<p>The benefits are negligible; the costs are likely to be very high. </p>
<p><strong><em>This is part two of The Conversation’s Gambling in Australia series. Read part one here: <a href="http://theconversation.com/gambling-in-australian-culture-more-than-just-a-day-at-the-races-1706">Gambling in Australian culture: more than just a day at the races</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/2013/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Livingstone receives funding from the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) to conduct preliminary research into the level of funding received by organised sport in Victoria from gambling interests.</span></em></p>GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – Australians spend about $20 billion every year gambling. This level of expenditure is, according to The Economist, the highest in the world on a per capita basis. Some would argue…Charles Livingstone, Senior Lecturer, Global Health and Society, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/17062011-06-27T04:28:10Z2011-06-27T04:28:10ZGambling in Australian culture: more than just a day at the races<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1875/original/aapone-20091103000209227899-topshots-racing-aus-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Betting can be fun, but it's not worth losing your shirt over.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">William West/AFP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – The idea that Australians love to gamble is so firmly established that we rarely pause to question it. </p>
<p>This is true whether we picture Chinese and British “diggers” passing time on the goldfields, the sacred ritual of two-up games on Anzac Day or <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/collections/pharlaps_heart/">Phar Lap’s heart</a> and the “race that stops the nation”.</p>
<p>Such questioning is timely as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/06/3209525.htm">new legislation is proposed</a> to regulate the way we gamble on electronic gaming machines (or pokies) and to restrict how far the interests of gambling sponsors can intrude into sports journalism. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.holisticpage.com.au/WannaBet_TimCostelloAndRoyceMillar%7C9781865083711">Wanna Bet?</a>, co-authored with Royce Millar in 2000, anti-pokie campaigner Tim Costello noted that it’s almost obligatory to preface one’s critical comments on gambling with words to the effect of: “Like every Australian, I enjoy a bet on the Melbourne Cup …” </p>
<p>A recent (as yet unpublished) pilot study I conducted on Melbourne Cup Day celebrations in the workplace suggests that what is most unique about gambling in Australian culture is not that we gamble more than others but the social force of the claim that “Australians love to gamble”. </p>
<p>Even though most of the 23 respondents (aged between 24 and 74) were serial attendees of Melbourne Cup Day celebrations in the workplace, 39% only ever gambled on Melbourne Cup Day sweepstakes and none described themself as “regular” gambler. </p>
<p>In spite of this, several spoke of the important role of Melbourne Cup Day celebrations in creating a sense of community in the workplace and expressing a sense of national belonging. </p>
<p>While the belief that Australians love to gamble persists even for those who rarely gamble in everyday life, <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415996778/">comparative international research</a> indicates that the development of gambling in Australia parallels that in other nations where policies of de-regulation were implemented as part of a broader reorganisation of markets and social institutions commonly termed “neo-liberalism”. </p>
<p>To understand the cultural shift from strictly regulated legal gambling, through a deregulated era of pokies in every suburban pub, to the current situation where opponents of pokie reforms are decrying the return of a Nanny State, we need to reconsider some common beliefs about problem gambling. </p>
<h2>Problem gambling</h2>
<p>The recognition of “<a href="http://abs.sagepub.com/content/51/1/33.abstract">pathological gambling</a>” by the <a href="http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Research/DSMIV/DSMIVTR/DSMIVvsDSMIVTR/SummaryofTextChangesInDSMIVTR/ImpulseControlDisorders.aspx">American Psychiatric Association</a> in the late 1980s saw a line drawn between two kinds of gamblers: a majority of gamblers who play “recreationally” and a small minority of “problem” gamblers who cause problems for themselves and significant others in the workplace and the family. </p>
<p>The idea of the problem gambler, understood as a dysfunctional consumer able to be weeded out from gambling venues, has since functioned as a convenient truth for state governments dependent on pokie taxes and industry stakeholders able to blame problems related to their products on a pre-existing condition of a minority of players. </p>
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<p>This consensus on problem gambling has been threatened by <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2011/s3245356.htm">the proposed Wilkie reforms</a> to make pokies safer. </p>
<p>These respond to the <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/gambling-2009/report">2010 Productivity Commission’s recognition</a> of the link between destructive gambling and the accessibility of “new generation pokies”, which induce disturbingly rapid expenditure. Hotels and clubs are resisting a shift from the self-exclusion of problem gamblers to the regulation of all players on public health and consumer protection grounds. </p>
<p>Beer coasters that seem to propose that <a href="http://www.its-unaustralian.com.au/JoinUs.aspx">problem gamblers are “un-Australian”</a> have been placed in venues. The ItsUnAustralian.com.au campaign warns: “They want to treat ordinary punters as problem gamblers. But you didn’t vote for it and you don’t have to put up with it.”</p>
<p>Yet <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9156.html">there’s nothing particularly Australian</a> about the rapid growth of pokies in most Australian states over the past two decades. </p>
<p>Tim Freedman, the singer and songwriter behind The Whitlams’ hit single Blow Up the Pokies (see above), puts the case that pokies’ invasion of the cultural space of the pub killed the live music scene that generated such iconic Australian bands as Cold Chisel and Midnight Oil.</p>
<h2>Poker</h2>
<p>A cultural study of gambling in Australia would be incomplete without mentioning Joe Hachem (see below), winner of the 2005 World Poker Series Tournament in Las Vegas.</p>
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<p>This great moment in Australian gambling is part of a global craze; “poker nights” now compete for punters with pokie lounges in suburban pubs. </p>
<p>As poker became a metaphor and set of techniques for success in neo-liberal societies in the period before the global financial crisis, Hachem became a local celebrity. His reality television series, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poker_Star">The Poker Star</a>, depicts poker more as a way of life than a recreational pastime. </p>
<p>In 2011, we are as likely to encounter a typical Australian gambler at a computer terminal at work or at home playing poker on an overseas website with people from all over the world and dreaming of one day going professional, as punting on a racetrack or playing a pokie machine. </p>
<p>Regardless of the form it takes, gambling clearly poses some unique challenges for businesses, regulators and consumers. </p>
<p>The task is to establish more or less safe and ethical ways to participate in the everyday games of sport, leisure, entertainment, resort tourism and finance to which gambling has become increasingly central. </p>
<p><em><strong>This is part one of The Conversation’s Gambling in Australia series. Read part two tomorrow.</strong></em></p>
<p><strong><em>Is gambling an integral part of Australian culture? Why?/ Why not? Leave your comments below.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Nicoll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – The idea that Australians love to gamble is so firmly established that we rarely pause to question it. This is true whether we picture Chinese and British “diggers” passing time…Fiona Nicoll, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.