Roast It's time to ditch the pokies

[threesixpio]

We have the regulation.
Many on this thread are talking as though a pokie machine is the devil, and all associated are dirty because of it.
It is to that thinking I responded.

With respect to pokies I think there could be more regulation.

 

[Flukey!]

Interesting discussion...

If it is wrong for the HFC to have Pokies, who should be allowed to have them?
It is just the business moguls like Bruce Mathieson?
What about RSL clubs?
Hotel owners?
Casinos?
Who else?

Is it frowned upon because we are regarded as a family club and community group and shouldn't do anything that contradicts that image?
We also sell cigarettes and alcohol. Should we not sell those either?

I think it is a little bit of political correctness gone mad. They are legal, the govt makes truck loads from them which means they will be here forever.
The profitability of machines is also highly regulated and controlled by the govt. The club has no influence over this.

I think people ultimately need to be responsible for their own actions, just like with smoking, drinking and any other vices or addictions you may or may not have.
Don't blame our club for other peoples poor decisions.

 

[threesixpio]

Interesting discussion...

If it is wrong for the HFC to have Pokies, who should be allowed to have them?
It is just the business moguls like Bruce Mathieson?
What about RSL clubs?
Hotel owners?
Casinos?
Who else?

Is it frowned upon because we are regarded as a family club and community group and shouldn't do anything that contradicts that image?
We also sell cigarettes and alcohol. Should we not sell those either?

I think it is a little bit of political correctness gone mad. They are legal, the govt makes truck loads from them which means they will be here forever.
The profitability of machines is also highly regulated and controlled by the govt. The club has no influence over this.

I think people ultimately need to be responsible for their own actions, just like with smoking, drinking and any other vices or addictions you may or may not have.
Don't blame our club for other peoples poor decisions.

Question might be whether we want our club to profit from the poor decisions of others

 

[Bikefreak]

Many peoples moral compass is either broken or non existent. Yeah yeah I know what you are going to say....he who lives in glass houses.......

If right and wrong or black and white comes down merely to personal opinion...then where have we gone so wrong?

Without concrete morals and values, its a moving feast. And move it has over the centuries...to where we are now.

We are told that some things are better....that we are getting there. Maybe with anything to extend ones lifespan (health), but as far as lifestyle goes its as hedonistic as ever and people still want more. But without the negative consequences.



Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[Brishawk]

Sorry, I know you'll hate this.
Sugar is absolutely addicting. And it's in everything, from bread to bon bons.
Is it easier giving it up than some others? Sure. But I gave up ciggies in one effort, 20 years ago, and haven't smoked since.
Stopped smoking pot a little after then )) because I couldn't motivate to do anything with my life with a bong around.
And I largely avoid heavy sugared foods cause I hate being fat.

I had lots of problems, my dad left me and mum when I was seven, mum sent me to live with grandparents when I was 12 because she need time to work on her own issues, yada yada yada.
It was up to me to make choices in the end that would give me the life I wanted.
I guess I'm a big believer in that.

I don't disagree that sugar is problematic and previously mentioned that it will become more regulated. I was looking at food for my one year old son on the weekend and found fruit sticks that were 75% sugar by weight. They advertise these as organic and with no added sugar (the sugar is naturally in the fruit and highly concentrated in the manufacturing process). The complexity of the sugar debate is much higher though because people need sugar, just not as much of it as we end up consuming. Pokies is challenging enough without adding sugar into the mix of this discussion.

I'm glad you were able to over come your issues but you are only one case among thousands.

 

[flinchfree]

I don't disagree that sugar is problematic and previously mentioned that it will become more regulated. I was looking at food for my one year old son on the weekend and found fruit sticks that were 75% sugar by weight. They advertise these as organic and with no added sugar (the sugar is naturally in the fruit and highly concentrated in the manufacturing process). The complexity of the sugar debate is much higher though because people need sugar, just not as much of it as we end up consuming. Pokies is challenging enough without adding sugar into the mix of this discussion.

I'm glad you were able to over come your issues but you are only one case among thousands.

One year old - awesome!
Best of times and hardest of times, and everything in between. Repeat every 6 hours.

 

[Furn2]

The crux of the matter is that Hawthorn pulling out of pokies wouldn't make one lick of real-world difference to anything.

We would have to sell the venues and they would keep running exactly as they are and we would lose money.

Keeping the venues without pokies would probably result in the venues losing a lot of money and potentially lose us 10s of millions and the licenses would be bought up and the machines back on the streets within a week.

So perhaps the answer is to push the club to go above and beyond just the regulations in terms of helping addicts at our venues which might actually help someone.

Not sure what exactly but I'm sure something could be done.

And while we're at it we should be leading the way in encouraging healthy diet and lifestyle to our 21k junior members maybe start with the players holding a water bottle rather than a Gatorade after the game or something.

 

[Davo23]

The crux of the matter is that Hawthorn pulling out of pokies wouldn't make one lick of real-world difference to anything. e would have to sell the venues and they would keep running exactly as they are and we would lose money. .
So perhaps the answer is to push the club to go above and beyond just the regulations in terms of helping addicts at our venues which might actually help someone.

Not sure what exactly but I'm sure something could be done.

And while we're at it we should be leading the way in encouraging healthy diet and lifestyle to our 21k junior members maybe start with the players holding a water bottle rather than a Gatorade after the game or something.

The revenue is taxed pretty heavily in order to provide for people with gambling problems.

The question is whether the government actually does this.

 

[Randy Campbell]

Who says it does? But Government regulates many things. Should Heroin be legal? People getting addicted is their own fault, right?

Pokies are not against the law.
Heroin is .
If it is not the fault of the person who got addicted, then who's fault is it?

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Question might be whether we want our club to profit from the poor decisions of others

It's evolution baby.

 

[Randy Campbell]

Question might be whether we want our club to profit from the poor decisions of others

Life feeds on life.

 

[threesixpio]

It's evolution baby.

We've evolved into a species which is very codependent. If everyone else is going down the gurgler I'm not necessarily winning

 

[threesixpio]

Pokies are not against the law.
Heroin is .
If it is not the fault of the person who got addicted, then who's fault is it?

If a product is specifically designed to cause addiction I think it's not a bad argument to run that those who pedal it are partly responsible. The question is whether pokies are designed for that purpose. My expertise is limited here.

 

[Jables]

I ssy we don't go far enough, I want us to get into the tobacco industry, gun smuggling, hard drugs. I want a slice of that crystal meth pie. Nah but seriously I think it makes everyone uncomfortable, but the AFL doesn't share the tv rights money so they can fund worthless expansion clubs and execs, so I guess every club not on the AFL dole has to seek some questionable sources of revenue. The reality is that the AFL has embraced gambling to the point that directly involving ourselves in it makes no big difference. But at the same time anyone saying it's no big deal has probably not seen the misery it causes.

 

[threesixpio]

I ssy we don't go far enough, I want us to get into the tobacco industry, gun smuggling, hard drugs. I want a slice of that crystal meth pie. Nah but seriously I think it makes everyone uncomfortable, but the AFL doesn't share the tv rights money so they can fund worthless expansion clubs and execs, so I guess every club not on the AFL dole has to seek some questionable sources of revenue. The reality is that the AFL has embraced gambling to the point that directly involving ourselves in it makes no big difference. But at the same time anyone saying it's no big deal has probably not seen the misery it causes.

Practical post and reminds me of the main board thread about Hawthorn where anti pokies posters like Brishawk and I were arguing alongside many of the other posters around here for an unreasonable focus on our club.

One club might not be as important as the AFL itself taking a long look at itself. There's gambling stuff littered everywhere associated with the AFL now

 

[Brishawk]

If a product is specifically designed to cause addiction I think it's not a bad argument to run that those who pedal it are partly responsible. The question is whether pokies are designed for that purpose. My expertise is limited here.

Literally they are designed that way...

Perhaps no one has uncovered the Platonic ideal of the slot machine, but certain principles undergird most games. First, there’s a vague aesthetic uniformity: colors tend toward the primary or pastel, franchise tie-ins are a must, and the game soundtracks are typically in a major key. Meanwhile, the multi-line wins introduced by Bally have become an unintelligible tangle: modern slots offer players upwards of 50 and sometimes 100 different winning combinations — so many that without the corresponding lights, sounds, and celebration, most casual and even advanced players would have trouble recognizing whether they’d won or lost.

To keep players gambling, all slots rely on the same basic psychological principles discovered by B.F. Skinner in the 1960s. Skinner is famous for an experiment in which he put pigeons in a box that gave them a pellet of food when they pressed a lever. But when Skinner altered the box so that pellets came out on random presses — a system dubbed variable ratio enforcement — the pigeons pressed the lever more often. Thus was born the Skinner box, which Skinner himself likened to a slot machine.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/6/85...ne-gambling-addiction-psychology-mobile-games

It used to be that you'd pull a lever, watch some numbers and pictures spin, and wait for quarters to pop out when you get lucky. But slot machines of the 21st century are of a whole different breed. Bally Technologies' Director of Game Development, Brett Jackson explains to Cool Hunting how much thought goes into studying what players react to when they sit down, and how they can be manipulated.

http://gizmodo.com/how-slot-machines-use-psychology-and-design-to-keep-you-496527700

By tweaking the virtual reel, a slot machine programmer can manipulate the outcome that players see, leading the players to believe that they've come closer to winning than they actually have. Think of a "near miss," in which it appears you almost hit a jackpot ² two 7s and a cherry, say, with a 7 lingering just above the cherry. That cherry was not almost a 7. This innovation might not be so surprising if it weren't for the fact that the gambling industry and the PGCB vigorously deny that near misses exist. They cite an obscure regulation (included in PGCB standards) that bans machines from making "secondary decisions" ² changing the outcome of a play after it's been called by the computer. But according to Kevin Harrigan, professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo, the "secondary decision" rule refers to a now extinct method of producing near misses that has since been replaced by more elegant means: Programmers simply load more near miss scenarios into the virtual reel, so that they come up more often.

"I agree that in the beginning you can get duped by the illusion, by the near miss," says Schüll. "But what I know from my years of research is that with gambling addicts, it's counter intuitively not about winning. In fact, winning interrupts them. They'll say, 'Oh s**t, now I have to sit here for another eight hours to lose this.'" Schüll has studied the culture and workings of slot machines, slot players and casinos since she first went to Vegas as an undergrad. She's the author of a soon to be released book, Machine.Zone:.Technology.and.Compulsion.in.Las.Vegas, as well as a documentary. Much of Schüll's work concentrates on the shocking efficiency with which slot machines not only relieve players of their money, but are able to induce them into a state she calls "the zone." In the zone, the goal is not to win money, but simply to keep playing, as intensely as possible. Players describe the state as a kind of trance, in which the world melts away and they are alone with the machine. In one academic paper, Schüll quotes a gambler named "Isabella" describing the experience: "I was gone," Isabella says. "My body was there, outside the machine, but at the same time I was inside the machine, inside the game."

Over the years, slot machines have been adapted to encourage players to play faster, longer and for larger wagers than ever. The stools on which players sit, for example, have been ergonomically designed to avoid cutting off circulation to the legs of players who sit for hours on end. Levers, which take time to pull, have been replaced with buttons ² an innovation one gaming expert declared could increase play from 300 "hands" an hour to up to 600 (Schüll estimates that "experienced" gamblers play closer to 900 games an hour). Encouraging sounds, bonus rounds and machines that adjust to the speed at which a player is hitting the button all work together to help ease the player into "the zone." All of this is designed to increase what industry insiders call "time on machine," one of the many esoteric terms used in the calculus of gambling profit, along with "playing to extinction" ² playing, that is, until one has no money left to bet.

http://stoppredatorygambling.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Meet-Your-New-Neighbor.pdf

 

[Brishawk]

Pokies are not against the law.
Heroin is .
If it is not the fault of the person who got addicted, then who's fault is it?

Heroin is only an act of parliament away from being legal. And Morphine is a close cousin and is legal. The legal status doesn't really impact the moral position.

 

[Randy Campbell]

Heroin is only an act of parliament away from being legal. And Morphine is a close cousin and is legal. The legal status doesn't really impact the moral position.

If it comes down to morals do we ban playing sport on Sundays because to some it is not right. Or to some people playing sport altogether, even watching it is morally wrong.

 

[Brishawk]

If it comes down to morals do we ban playing sport on Sundays because to some it is not right. Or to some people playing sport altogether, even watching it is morally wrong.

Great argument.

 

[threesixpio]

Great argument.

It's called infinite relativism. Pet hate

 

[MightyHawks]

Giving money to the hfc counts as giving to the community in the eyes of the law. It's one of the reasons pokies are so attractive.

it might count in the eyes of the law

But I'd love to hear we'd spent money on:
Beyond Blue
Gamblers Anonymous
The Nursing Home Alan Jeans spent his last days in
Some random clubs and associations that have nothing to do with the club

Not to say we can't profit from the pokies as well, but we are supposed to be putting back into the community

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

We've evolved into a species which is very codependent. If everyone else is going down the gurgler I'm not necessarily winning

I have a much more harsher outlook than that, but I keep it to myself.

 

[Gohawthorn13]

Pokies are a legal way to make money why are people against making money off gambling if people become addicted to it, then it is the responsibility of individuals to know when it's time to stop, I understands that's easier said then done but that's like saying it's wrong to sell fat people fast food at the end of the day people need to be responsible for their own choices.the heroin example is not an apt one because herion has direct effect on people when it causes people to overdose or with other addictive drugs causes then to do things they normally wouldn't do, you can't tell people they are not allowed to gamble they're own money then we are not living in a free society, no different to prohibition.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

How much of the $22mil ended up in Hawks pockets, are the hawks currently break even on their investment in pokies, there is a lot more to it than we turned a profit this year so we can get rid of pokies and still be successful.

I'd be happy if there were no poker machines in the state, but there are, they are legal and I doubt that will change any time soon, I also don't see the club getting out of the business any time soon

A lot gets pumped into waverly Park

That public gym is practically kept open thanks to the pokies
All the maintenance on the oval and the surrounds comes.from pokies


The club, along with stkilda and Melbourne also contribute above what is legislated, to gamblers help

 

[Brishawk]

Pokies are a legal way to make money why are people against making money off gambling if people become addicted to it, then it is the responsibility of individuals to know when it's time to stop, I understands that's easier said then done but that's like saying it's wrong to sell fat people fast food at the end of the day people need to be responsible for their own choices.the heroin example is not an apt one because herion has direct effect on people when it causes people to overdose or with other addictive drugs causes then to do things they normally wouldn't do, you can't tell people they are not allowed to gamble they're own money then we are not living in a free society, no different to prohibition.

You should go back an read the articles I linked to about the psychology behind pokies. There is no difference between the chemical stimuli of drugs and the sensory stimuli of pokies in terms of their impact on the brain. in the ten years prior to 2013 the Victorian coroner linked 128 deaths (mostly suicide) to problem gambling most of which were pokies related. That is a similar number to the amount of people who died from heroin overdose in Victoria in the same period 150ish).