Gamblers blew $119 million on the pokies in Casey in 2009-10. Stuart Teather and Catherine Watson report on the human cost and the campaign to reduce the damage.For the casual gamer, the lights and sounds of a pokie venue might be mildly entertaining — for others, slightly annoying.
At the height of Gabriela Byrne’s gaming addiction, it was like a drug, throwing fuel on the fire of her problem.
Adrenalin flooded her system. Addiction took over. She compares it to a love affair.
‘‘It was so powerful, so passionate, so consuming that you thought you couldn’t live without it,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s like the person you can’t live without, knowing whole-heartedly the consequences it has on your life.’’
Ms Byrne got hooked on pokie machines in 1992, and her problem stretched for four years, wreaking havoc on her bank account, friends and, most importantly, her family.
‘‘I remember taking money out of my daughter’s money box and leaving a note,’’ she recalled. ‘‘When I came home that night I sat at her bedside, tears running down my face. My little girl said, ‘Mummy, can’t Daddy buy you a poker machine so you and the money can just stay at home?’’’
Ms Byrne fought her way through her addiction in a battle that was neither quick nor easy. Now she has dedicated her life to helping others with a similar problem.
Leanne Petrides has seen at first hand the distress caused by addiction to poker machines. One client said to her: ‘‘I wish I could cut my hands off so I couldn’t do it.’’
A psychologist and manager at Cranbourne Community and Information Support Service, Ms Petrides said there was a dreadful sense of shame for people who became hooked on the pokies.
‘‘People will talk about family breakdowns, domestic violence, alcohol and drug addictions, but problem gambling is the thing that people seem most embarrassed about. They feel they should be able to control it. But intermittent reinforcement — such as winning on the pokies — is one of the strongest reinforcements. Because it’s intermittent, you never know when you’re going to win. It could come at any moment.
‘‘There’s also a kind of logic — if I stay on the same machine it will pay out, I’ll win, it’s just a matter of time. But if anyone kept a journal or a log they would see how much it was costing them.’’
Ms Petrides said some people talked about being horrified at their behaviour. ‘‘They know in a rational sense it’s not good and they think they should be able to stop, but they still believe the next $1, or the next $5, could be the way to get a home or to pay back all their debts.
‘‘The fallout can be horrendous. I’ve seen people whose relationships have broken down, people who’ve been declared bankrupt.’’
But there is a way back from the nightmare, she said.
‘‘It’s hard to do. It’s an addiction like anything else. But we’ve had a number of clients who have undertaken counselling, sometimes in conjunction with self-exclusion, and have come back and reported that their lives have been turned around.’’
Eastern Access Community Health regional counselling services manager Bernie Durkin said that if you walked into a pokies venue, the odds were that nearly half of the punters were problem gamblers or at risk of problem gambling.
He said pokies were a particular risk for problem gamblers.
‘‘It’s a highly designed technology designed so that if you sit in front of the machine forever it will take all your money. The house always wins.’’
Sam Aziz campaigned on a platform of ‘‘no new poker machines’’ when he ran as a councillor for City of Casey in 2008. He has seen the impact of pokies on his own church community in Hallam, where he said it had destroyed families.
‘‘In our congregation, a lot of the priests’ counselling time is spent on issues to do with gambling. I spend a lot of time talking to church leaders all over Casey facing similar problems. It’s a huge issue in our city.’’
Cr Aziz said Casey Council’s new gaming strategy, backed unanimously by councillors, would press the state government to extend a pokies cap across the city, and to ensure there were no pokies on any council-owned facilities for the term of the strategy.
Unfortunately, he said, it was too late for Casey Fields, where VFL club Casey Scorpions have a permit to install 60 pokies.
Ironically, the council supported the Scorpions’ application in 2006, even though a year earlier, in a submission to the Regional Electronic Gaming Machine Caps Review Panel, it had advocated capping the number of machines.
Another Casey councillor, Kevin Bradford, said he was irate that the big pokies operators continued to target suburbs like Cranbourne.
‘‘People who are struggling tend to take more risks to get the money to get out of the doldrums. I’m not against pokie machines per se — some venues sponsor sports and musical groups —but the culture definitely needs to change.’’
On a federal level, clubs and anti-gambling campaigners have been at war over a push by independent MP Andrew Wilkie to force gamblers to pre-commit every time they play pokies.
Mr Wilkie has pushed for a system in which gamblers would have to sign up for a card, and would have to set a maximum amount they could gamble in a day.
Across the country, the move has raised the ire of gaming venues, which have argued that it would deter people who occasionally play pokies.
As a former gambling addict, Ms Byrne disagrees.
She said it would make a world of difference to gamblers, and could have broken her habit much more quickly had it been mandatory, when she was hooked.
‘‘It would help problem gamblers set limits in a rational state. When you get a card and you have to key in the amount that you’re prepared to lose, at that time, you’re in a very rational state of mind. You think about your family and how much you can actually afford to lose.”
She said it would also deter those on their way to developing a problem. ‘‘The first time I entered a gaming venue, if I had to set a limit of, say, $20, I probably would’ve been very happy.’’
The federal government’s Productivity Commission estimates that up to 2 per cent of Australian adults have problems with their gambling, and problem gamblers contribute about 41 per cent of gaming machine expenditure.
This means that about $48 million of the $119 million lost on Casey pokies in 2009-10 could come from about 3800 problem gamblers’ pockets — an average loss of $12,631.
If you or anyone you know is suffering from gambling addiction, phone Gambler’s Help on 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au
THE NUMBERS
• Casey has 899 poker machines in 13 venues, or 5.2 machines per 1000 adults.
• The greatest concentration of poker machines is in Cranbourne, which has 329 machines, or 26.8 machines per 1000 adults, more than five times the Casey average.
• In 2009-10, pokies punters lost $119 million in the City of Casey.
• The city’s most lucrative pokies venues are the Fountain Gate Taverner ($16 million in 2009-10), Hallam Taverner ($15.6 million), Prince Mark Hotel, Doveton, ($14 million), Castello’s Berwick Hotel ($12 million), Hampton Park Tavern, ($11.9 million), Motor Club Hotel, Cranbourne ($11.7 million) and Berwick Inn Taverner ($9.8 million).
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