Could there be light at the end of the gambling tunnel?

Some lessons are only learned, it often seems, when a monetary penalty is imposed, when someone sues for civil damages. The tobacco industry is a case in point. Science could not put them in their place, but damages claims can. It is to be hoped that - in time - gambling will suffer a similar fate.

To-day, in Australia, we may see some light at the end of a tunnel. We hope it is not extinguished.

A well-heeled problem gambler has established at law that he has a case against Crown Casino here in Melbourne.

Currently, gambling venues get away with grand larceny. They can lure and entice to their hearts' content and disclaim any responsibility. Problem gamblers can steal from their employers and lose the money over the gambling tables or down the machines but gambling entities are not held liable for receiving stolen property and are never forced to repay it. Families and their property can go down the drain because of a problem family member but no corporate entity is ever held to be liable.

To-day, Justice David Harper may well have set in train events which could change all that. Miss Eagle sincerely hopes so.

NOTE: Justice Harper was appointed a Queens Counsel in Victoria in 1986 and in New South Wales in 1989 after a distinguished career at the Victorian Bar which began in 1970. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in March 1992. He is currently Chair, International Humanitarian Law Advisory Committee of the Red Cross (Victorian branch). He has had a long and active involvement with the Victorian Bar (1980-91) and was the Chairman in 1990-1. Justice Harper served as a part-time Commissioner of the Victorian Law Reform Commission from 1991 until its abolition by the Liberal Government in 1992.

Casinos, Pokies, Governments: a smart card?

Miss Eagle has received a comment to this post from DizzieLizzie. DL's points are so well made, in the view of Miss Eagle, that they deserve greater prominence than a comments link gives so they are posted here below. Miss Eagle would welcome further comment.

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Reality is that the one sure method of tracing and recording the spending of pokies players, that also would give poker machine consumers the protective tools to better regulate their own spending, is 'smart cards'.....and these have been consistently and conveniently rejected by govts and the gaming industry alike!

No wonder!

Using mandatory 'smart cards', pokies players could keep accurate spending records, thus could more readily quantify (and claim) their recorded 'losses' on poker machines. The government etc does NOT want that information to be so readily available!

Loss on pokies is already causing the govt. huge embarrassment.

The last measure it would willingly introduce is a card that empowers pokies consumers to limit their lossses...and that may also provide a spending receipt that incidentally is required in our consumer law! (Refer Fair Trading Act 1999 161a) So not only are pokies being operated illegally....our govt. is irresponsibly allowing this to occur, even though a 'smart card' would also stop self-excluded or under-aged players from playing.

For that benefit alone the card is worth introducing. It may also protect innocent families by providing a warning of over-spending, so that homes and businesses and family security are not lost!

Crown Casino is at huge fault for misleading the public about dangers of poker machines....and so is the 'puppet' government who is over-protecting the gaming industry, instead of acting to protect all citizens, who deserve greater 'duty of care'.

The pokies problem is NOT the 'too hard basket' at all Denis. It is easy to fix.

Ban poker machines OR make them safer to use! Simple!

The government AND the gaming industry MUST tell citizens the full truth...and that is that many more people are harmed by pokies than is reported. ALL citizens will be paying for the huge rise in public health and legal costs caused by pokies addiction for far longer than the government who now ignores effective reform will remain in power, at least!

Right now the govt. is desperately trying to hide the fact that the majority of people surveyed by local councils want pokies gone from the suburbs ....or banned completely!

So much news contains the 'good' that pokies supposedly do for communities....but we are not fully told of the business collapses, loss of employment, divorces, thefts, suicides, mental illness that has occurred. They are glossed over and our Victorin communities for instance, simply cannot handle losing billions each year to two businesses, Tatts and Tabcorp....while the govt. does not get enough of the pie to ever cover its losses. Taxpayers cover THAT!!

We are also led to believe that pokies addicts are a tiny group of irresponsible social misfits...they are 99% NOT. The machines are designed to addict. NORMAL people get addicted to these insidiously dangerous machines, that use subliminal, hypnotic and 'conditioning' techniques to put NORMAL people unknowingly into a trance. The machines are also 'rigged' to have purposeful 'near misses' etc...to promote over-spending.

It is too easy to say that individuals are to blame if they lose control on poker machines. As humans we have been seduced and exploited by these machines, that purposely hook in to our normal hard-wiring...to addle our brains....by design!If we allow dangerous products into our communities...WE as a WHOLE population are to blame!! Would we allow a car with no brakes to be on our roads? Most likely we would not...Perhaps we may though if we misguidedly believed that by doing so, we may be gaining from another's loss! Hence our failing and irresponsible govt. allows the myth to continue...that pokies addicts are in a minority....that individuals are to blame here...and our courts STILL blame the human victims...those who were told that pokies would be FUN!!

Pokies addicts did not expect to be harmed by a recreation that was presented as being harmless for all but 1-2%!! Being normal people they did not think that they were in such a 'misfit' category....prior to their addictions taking hold...waking up too late to make up for their debilitating loss!

Our courts should be blaming the true criminals...the government, the rapacious gaming industry and those who KNEW full well the real dangers of these machines BEFORE they were released on an unsuspecting population.

We were told that poker machines would save our economy. What rot!!Now we have ALL seen the real tragedy and cost of poker machines....and people who allow these defective products to remain are just as greedy and culpable as the government who is now hooked on them...OR the gaming industry who bleeds us dry!!

So when our communities are financially destroyed....who will we blame then? Just 1-2% of 'irresponsible' people?? C'mon.

Wake up Australians!! This is OUR problem!!

Look at Western Australia...the only Australian state who resisted the lure of these poker machines. NOW it is booming! That is NOT just due to mining! It also results from keeping billions of dollars that eastern states lose...away from the gaming industry!!....to be placed in the hands of greengrocers, butchers, hairdressers, dentists, clothing retailers, restauranteurs....and all of the other tradespeople who LOSE business over in the east.

And WHY would we want poker machines BANNED or gone from our neighbourhoods...if we felt their benefits rather than their pain???

Crown complicit in a crime?

Here we go again. Another mug punter has gambled his life earnings/savings away - this time to the tune of $20 million +. He misappropriated funds from a company of which he was the sole director. He is to be sentenced next week. The judge says he will do time. What are the odds, dear Reader, that Crown - where he did his dough - will retain the proceeds of his crimes? Will the company have redress? It's almost certain his family won't.

Gambling: addiction, pain, loss

Miss Eagle's friend over at The Nature of Robertson has had difficulty getting acceptance of his comment on the previous post. He thought that Miss E had deleted it. She hadn't. She had only deleted a comment which was reasonable enough but was from a site which promoted Philippine casinos. If anyone else is having problems with Comments, please advise. Meantime, Miss E's friend has emailed her and asked her to post his Comment on this site. As you will see, he feels rather strongly on this topic - and for very good reason.

So over to The Nature of Robertson - these are his views:

Let me declare at the outset my personal position.

I am against gambling.

I am a relative of someone who has incurred huge financial damage personally (as well as to me) from the abuse of (and by) Poker Machines.

I care less about the "High Rollers" because one assumes that they can afford to lose millions, or else the "gatekeepers" of the Casinos ought not let them in there in the first place.

My concern is with Poker Machines in clubs and pubs across Australia, where every day people spend their money for rent, money for food, money for shoes for the kids - none of which they can afford. Ken***tt single-handedly destroyed the lives of thousands of Victorian families when he turned just about every suburban and country pub into so-called casinos, and allowed Poker Machines in where they had never been allowed.

He did this to justify allowing his mate Ron to build his "Crowning monstrosity" on the Yarra. Even Jeff could see the inconsistencies there. So, he spread the damage, rather than prevent it.

Thousands of country Victorian businesses went to the wall as a result of the spread of Pokies; and thousands of little families and kids within those families suffered (and no doubt still do) as a result.

If you talk quietly amongst your friends about gambling debts, you will find a story amongst your workmates, and friends, of lives ruined by gambling. People seldom advertise this fact, but just ask around, and it will come out. And you will be shocked by the pain, the hurt, and the loss - in the suburbs, close to you.

Shopping: therapy, festival, compulsion, illness, manipulation

Ramada - Mall of America

Shopping is better than sex.
If you're not satisfied after shopping you can make an exchange for something you really like.

Adrienne Gusoff

Shop Til You Drop Magazine

What is it about shopping? What is it about shopping and the female of the species? Can we live with it? Can we live without it?

We talk about retail therapy. There seems to be a word for shopping til you drop: oniomania. Melbourne - which has more than its fair share of bread and circuses - is contemplating, as Miss Eagle has mentioned before, a shopping festival. Dubai actually has one and so has Hong Kong.

It is lovely to walk through beautiful shops selling beautiful things - even if one doesn't spend. Miss Eagle can still dream about Prada and Bulgari even if she can't afford it. This is why, even though she has not spent a cent there, Miss E was thrilled by the refurbishment of the Ground Floor at David Jones' Burke Street Mall store.

Could there possibly be a down side?

There is the illness. The cultural distortion which sees Hot Cross Buns - an Easter tradition - on sale before Epiphany. Advertising manipulating our children. The sexualization of our children. And for more information on how, when we consume, we are consumed go here.

Then there is the economic impact. Some see the globalization of retail and commodities which it sells as a positive thing. This article - brief as it is - comes out on the positive size while mentioning social disruption and the loss of jobs in some sectors of the economy.

We need to remember that when we purchase all that stuff from China and India it is great for their economies. And they really do need jobs. But when we lose jobs in this nation, we also lose skills - skills that are not always readily replaced with new ones. We can also lose access to jobs and personal economic development for women and young people.

So what is the solution? Miss E has none except the caveat emptor (buyer beware) provisions. Be aware! Demand accountability - not just from individuals but from governments and corporations.

If we become aware and demand accountability, we will become smart, ethical shoppers.

And for increasing numbers of us, we will go this way to the opp shop.

Who is addicted? Who gives a damn?

Why is Miss Eagle not surprised at this? Why do people consider that those - governments, hotels, clubs, casinos - who promote gambling give a damn about the community? They don't give a damn about the individuals who come to their venues and are entrapped by the insidious web of gambling. So why would they give a fig for individuals en masse woven into a community.

State Governments are as addicted to poker machine revenue as any hotelier or any gambling addict. Meanwhile at a national level our so-called anti-drugs, zero tolerance Federal Government is addicted to revenue raised from the two major drugs of addiction which are, between them, responsible for so many deaths, so much violence, so many broken marriages, so many car accidents, so many hospital and prison admissions: alcohol and tobacco.

When governments get serious about drugs and addictions and rid themselves of revenue gained from them, we will have sure evidence that they give a damn about the community. When governments give a damn, the community parasites of hotels, clubs and casinos might learn to give a damn too.

Otherwise the motto, to paraphrase Rhett Butler, is "Frankly, Citizen, we don't give a damn!"