Disgraceful EFC - Extending pokies license to 2042

Sameolds2010 · July 11, 2018, 12:22pm

Would you have a problem with the fact we’d look like redneck fkwits

Deadly · July 11, 2018, 12:40pm

In great news for the future of the AFL, Wes continue to do all they can to erase the memory of Goyder’s decisions when in charge, can’t wait to see what the awfuls got cookin.

Vegan · July 11, 2018, 12:42pm

So advertising/marketing should be banned to protect these people as well? Again the issue is where do you draw the line? Would you ban pubs and bottleshops because they entice drinkers?

Lol these machines are not T-800 hunter killers. They are standardised machines that treat all equally, there is no incorporated AI that identifies vulnerable minded gamblers. They are restricted by law to return a certain percentage to the punters. I think in the 80-90% range.

wimmera1 · July 11, 2018, 12:43pm

I liked it better when it was battleships.

SMJ · July 11, 2018, 1:24pm

The 80-90 range is right. But that doesn’t mean exactly what you think. Read this detailed analysis which I found online - it’s quite interesting (I didn’t get my head around it at first)

But, I hear some of you say, at least poker machines aren’t that bad. They have a guaranteed return-to-player percentage which is pretty high, don’t they? Well, yes… and no. It is true that, by law, poker machines in Australia have to return somewhere between 85 per cent and 90 per cent, over time, to the player. This might seem like a good thing, but it’s not. The reality is that today’s poker machines can satisfy this requirement while still bleeding the public dry. The reason for this paradox? Poker machine mathematics.

Let’s take the case of a stereotypical poker machine player. Meet Gladys, a resident of the Happy Valley retirement home. Every week, on pension day, Gladys hops on the mini-bus with her friends and heads off to her local club for a “bit of fun” on the pokies. She likes it there, the young staff are lovely and helpful and it’s a welcome change from the home. Besides, you never know… she just might win.

So Gladys settles down in front of her favourite game, pulls a $20 note from her purse and gently feeds it in to the machine. It’s a 2-cent machine, with 50 lines, so that’s a dollar a game. There are multipliers, but Gladys doesn’t like those. They’re for the big spenders.

Gladys likes to take her time and enjoy the day. She watches the reels spin and, once they’ve stopped, she likes to look at the end combination and see how close she might have been to a big win, or work out which lines she’s won on. She doesn’t play fast; maybe 10 games a minute, which is pretty slow for a poker machine. Pokies will let you play between 20 and 30 games a minute, depending on which state you live in, but Gladys likes to play slowly. So 10 games a minute it is.

Gladys plays, and plays, and plays. She stops for a bit of lunch, which is put on by the retirement home; this is their day out after all. She also takes a short break for a cup of tea, but then it’s back to her machine. She chats a little with her friends, who are playing nearby, but for the most part she’s watching her machine.

By the time the bus is ready to go back to Happy Valley, Gladys has spent about five hours playing “her” poker machine. Over and over again her hands have gone back to her purse to pull out another $20 note and feed it in to the machine; they all add up. She’s spent $300 today, and that’s her pension gone. A little dazed and a little sad, she climbs back on to the bus and heads back to the home… to wait for next week.

This is a familiar tale, but there’s a catch. As mentioned earlier, it’s common [=knowledge that poker machines have a return-to-player percentage of anywhere between 85 per cent and 90 per cent, depending on where you live and what kind of establishment you’re playing in. For the sake of the story, let’s assume that Gladys’ poker machine was set to 90 per cent. That means that over a long period of time, the machine will return 90 per cent of money gambled to players, and keep 10 per cent as profit.

But wait, I hear you cry. Gladys didn’t lose 10 per cent; she lost it all! Well, no… not according to poker machine mathematics. The rule is that the poker machine has to return 90 per cent of money gambled… not money inserted. And there’s a huge difference.

Gladys played for five hours. She played 10 games a minute; that’s 3,000 games over five hours. 3,000 times that Gladys pushed that little button. And each time she did, she bet a dollar. Sometimes she lost, and sometimes she won; those winnings allowed her to postpone the next $20 just that little bit longer. But by the end of the day, by poker machine mathematics, Gladys had gambled $3,000 in one dollar increments.

Here’s the sting. According to the poker machine, $3,000 was gambled, and $300 (all of Gladys’ money) was kept. That means that the machine paid out $2,700… which is the 90 per cent return. I’m sure Gladys will be pleased to hear that as she sits in the retirement home, waiting for the next pension day.

Those who defend poker machines often point to the high rate of return as one of the reasons that pokies are just “good, clean fun” for most people. The reality is that every poker machine can meet this “rate of return” requirement while still leaving the gambler broke. That’s poker machine mathematics.

darkknightpheonix · July 11, 2018, 1:31pm

what about fast food joints who are specifically designed to exploit people ?
what about big chains who exploit children workers in other countries, or pay 1 dollar a day ?
what about companies who test on animals ?
what about banks who are exploiting everyone ?
what about car companies who lie about them exploiting and destroying the environment ?

what about a local business who exploits it’s workers behind closed doors, that you don’t know anything about ?

what about shopping centers who exploit people with kids and set up their shops where lollies are right infront of necessity everyday items ?

and to answer your earlier comment smj, I wouldn’t care one way or the other if they ran a gun shop, it’s a bit obtuse to say they’d start selling guns at the hanger, cos yeah.
I’d hope they’d be doing everything possible to make sure the club is financially safe and viable beyond needing help via the afl.

I don’t care if they keep the pokies venue or not, sell it or not, as long as it’s a business decision and not solely a moral choice without regard for financial planning, because again once you start making business decisions based on one moral view, you may not like the next decision that’s made, or the one after that.

Soulnet · July 11, 2018, 1:45pm

What about is just about the most stupid argument you could have.

We specifically are debating the one topic. How about we discuss the pros and cons of that?

wimmera1 · July 11, 2018, 1:46pm

What about elephants?
Have we lost their trust?

Scorpio · July 11, 2018, 1:48pm

Speaking of misery and disadvantaged people, do you want to ban alcohol as well?

Preliminary_Point2 · July 11, 2018, 1:50pm

Don’t aspire to do this good thing because hey there’s this other bad thing allready.

JBOMBER · July 11, 2018, 1:50pm

Interesting you said you didn’t get your head around it at 1st as I assumed you would have already understood the sums. Basically you can bet $1 & “win” 90c every turn which of course means you lose every turn but that meets the requirements. I’d love to know if any actual study has been done on cash in v cash out of the venue as of course even on the days when Gladys turns her 1st $20 into $200 she’s very likely to put all of that win back into the machines. A controlled test for example where 100 known gamblers (not just addicts but people who enjoy playing) enter a venue per day each with $100 & then leave when they are out of money, have had enough or want to leave with the money they have won or left. I think only something like that would give a true indication of what the real returns are.

The biggest con these days is that most have some form of jackpot. This is usually a lot higher than you could win on a normal spin & by keeping a running total its a real incentive to chase. Again the reality is that it only goes up by 1c for every 1-2 dollars wagered so the whole “its gotta go off soon” enticement overlooks the facts that its been tens of thousands of spins in the making. Many regular players claim that these jackpots mean far less returns from the normal spins & again this would be interesting to clarify given the % thats added to the jackpots.

Theclubsanga · July 11, 2018, 1:55pm

No 1 chained Gladys to the pokie!
No 1 told Gladys this is what we want you to do!
Gladys has a brain in which she uses it to say yes or no…
Yes ill gamble, No I won’t smoke, yes ill buy shares, no I won’t play pokies, yes ill chuck 5 bucks on a horse, no tatts lotto is a gib, yes I will buy drugs, no I don’t need a cat…
Kapeesh…we all have brains and Gladys knows or should know better.

Scorpio · July 11, 2018, 1:56pm

I couldn’t care less about Pokie licenses.
People get addicted, just like they do to alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, sex, driving fast and a whole bunch of other things.
I can’t see any reason why the club should get rid of their pokie licenses any more than they should turn in their alcohol licenses.
People that spend all their money on pokies are no different to the old drunk that used to come home on payday with no money left.
Protecting the population from that evil was a spectacular success in the USA (NOT) cant see why we need to protect the population from gambling when most of the population dont have a problem.
I am all for making more things legal rather than banning more.
Club provides a service to people who want to use it. If you dont want to use the service don’t.

Theclubsanga · July 11, 2018, 1:56pm

I like the free cookies.

Preliminary_Point2 · July 11, 2018, 1:58pm

Gladys has the beginnings of dementia

Gladys doesn’t have anything to spend the money on, in fact she doesn’t even know how much is in her account

Gladys isn’t even really aware that the money the home gives her is hers

Scorpio · July 11, 2018, 2:00pm

So we want to ban the pokies to protect people with dementia?

Preliminary_Point2 · July 11, 2018, 2:02pm

No, or rather I’ve got nothing to add to the argument.

Just wanted to refute shortofasangas assertion that we are all rational people fully in control of our actions. It’s a nice fairy tale.

Scorpio · July 11, 2018, 2:08pm

No we are not all in full control of our actions. But we cant protect everyone from everything.

Humble_Minion · July 11, 2018, 2:11pm

There is a staggering amount of psychological research that goes into poker machine design, affecting all aspects of the machine from the graphic design to the payout amounts and patterns, and it’s all intended to stimulate all sorts of sub-rational risk-reward responses and addictive behaviours in the human brain. Personally I find the whole field as creepy as ■■■■, but that’s what happens. And as far as I know, the regulation on this sort of thing is minimal if not non-existent beyond the standard TV ‘no subliminal messaging’ type level.

Is Gladys a rational individual 100% responsible for her own actions when the designers of the machine she’s playing on have spent years and leveraged a vast body of neuroscientific research in order to basically hack her higher brain function so that she keeps feeding the machine even when her rationality would probably tell her not to?

The answer is certainly not a flat ‘no’, but it’s really hard to give an unambiguous ‘yes’ either. The truth lies uneasily between the two.

Preliminary_Point2 · July 11, 2018, 2:14pm

I just want to know when I can get coke, pills and weed at the pub.

Why is everyone protecting me?

I won’t hurt myself(well much) promise.