It’s stating the obvious, but problem gamblers have a problem. They suffer from a horrible addiction – the same as alcoholics and druggies – that causes impulses they cannot resist and consequences that affect all those around them.
Like all addicts, problem gamblers go to extreme lengths to get their fix. For 60 per cent, that involves committing a crime to get the cash to feed their habit.
A report by private corruption investigation group Warfield & Associates found poker machines were the most common way to gamble stolen money. The study found between 2008-10 a whopping $13 million was stolen to play the pokies.
In one of the most extreme cases a 50-year-old woman overpaid herself and made excessive superannuation contributions to the tune of $4.6 million. She was jailed for five years.
It begs the question, if problem gamblers are willing to risk jail by stealing, how on earth is a system where they set their own limit with a plastic card – a license to punt – going to help them?
They may be only able to afford to $5 a week but under Labor’s extreme policy they will be able to set their limit as high as they want, say $200, or $1,000 or even $10,000. Not really much help in deterring a problem gambler is it?
It’s like saying to an alcoholic, its okay to drink; you’ve just got to decide if you want a six-pack, a carton, or a keg. Or giving a speeder their license and saying, how fast to do you want to drive? 100km/h? 150km/h? 200km/h? You get the picture.
While not helping problem gamblers, the scary thing is this extreme policy – adopted by Labor to win Andrew Wilkie’s support to form Government – could actually cost their families more.
This is the expert evidence of Dr Sally Gainsbury, a post doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Gambling Education and Research at the Southern Cross University. Dr Gainsbury, one of the country’s leading experts in problem gambling, told the parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform:
“There is some evidence that pre-commitment levels will actually increase gambling for problem gamblers, who will set higher limits to give themselves a buffer zone and then end up actually spending more because they are changing their own mindsets of how much they have to spend. So another potential consequence is actually increasing gambling amongst certain problem gamblers.”
Labor’s policy gets worse though. Dr Gainsbury told the committee if a card was introduced problem gamblers will ‘come up with ways around them.’
So the pathological problem gamblers - that desperately need our help - will continue to gamble while recreational players will shy away from handing over their personal details and signing up to Labor’s Orwellian scheme.
The result is revenue at pubs and clubs will fall, the services they offer - such as sponsoring local sports teams, community groups and students and building and maintaining local sporting fields - will be slashed and thousands employed by the industry will lose their job.
While the scheme is yet to be implemented, its effects are already being felt. The Twin Towns Services Club on the NSW/Qld border has already cancelled $50 million in development and laid off staff. Many more clubs - including NRL power house the Brisbane Broncos - have told the committee their future will be in jeopardy if Labor’s scheme is implemented.
The other problem is if Labor commits to pre-commitment it will shift the focus – and more importantly funding – away from the current measures that have helped reduced the rate of problem gambling.
Professor Alex Blaszczynski, Director of the Gambling Treatment Clinic and Research Unit at the University of Sydney, has the same fear and told the committee:
“My concern is that there is going to be a vast amount of money allocated to pre-commitment and its implementation at the cost of other interventions that may in fact be more effective - providing signage, providing linkages with treatment and so forth.”
Despite all this clear and compelling evidence Labor is charging full steam ahead with this policy. Move over Labor’s failed pink batts scheme, its rip-off school halls, its failed cash for clunkers, its failed grocery watch and fuel watch because mandatory pre-commitment will soon be challenging you for the title of Labor’s biggest stuff up.
There is no doubt something has to be done to help problems gamblers – however this extreme policy is not the answer. It’s the ransom demand of a rogue MP – and Julia Gillard and Labor are prepared to pay what ever the cost in order to cling to power. Though their grip is slipping and Labor MPs know it.
“It will be a death blow to a number of us,” one nervous Labor MP recently told the Daily Telegraph.
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