Would you like to support local journalism?

(with some quirky flair)

Regular News FEEDINGS via social + online. by locals for locals

HomeNewsRoundtable held to solve gambling harm on the Beaches as local pokies...

Roundtable held to solve gambling harm on the Beaches as local pokies losses reach $2.8M a week

A roundtable discussion on the impact of gambling on the Northern Beaches was held yesterday, 22 October.

The audience comprised newly elected councillors, staff in the industry, and community members with lived experiences.

Manly Observer Editor, Kim Smee, emceed the community roundtable as a volunteer. Manly Observer does not allow for gambling advertisement on its platforms.

Northern Beaches Mayor, Sue Heins acknowledged the organisations who formed the organisation committee: Pittwater Uniting Church social justice team, Forest Kirk Uniting Church, Northern Beaches Uniting Church at Balgowlah, Lifeline Northern Beaches, Local Kind, Roses in the Ocean, former Northern Beaches Councillor and special advisor, Pat Daley OAM and Wesley Mission Advocacy and Government Relations.

“We’re excited to host this round table in response to a Council resolution made when the Gambling Harm Minimisation policy was adopted in March this year,” Mayor Heins said in her opening remarks.

“We know … gambling is not just an individual problem, nor does it affect just the Northern Beaches. It is a major social issue and one that has profound effects on individuals, their families and the broader community. It’s important that we continue to play a role in education, advocacy and lobbying, and our councillors are proud to take that leadership role.”

Northern Beaches Mayor, Sue Heins, opening address.

The Northern Beaches Council is one of two (the other being Fairfield Council) who have a formal policy on gambling impact and once you hear the next statistic, you can see why.

Northern Beaches pokies players lose, on average, $2.8 million a week to gambling – and that is a consistent number for the last two years (with slight escalation). During a presentation by Dr Kate da Costa from Wesley Mission it was stated there were 2,040 poker machines across 39 premises locally. To put it in comparison, the entire state of Tasmania has 2,294 and has a quarterly loss of $27.5 million ($2.1 million per week).

In Western Australia, pubs and clubs are thriving, despite poker machines being banned.

Manly Editor, Kim Smee, opened the roundtable at Northern Beaches Council.

What the experts said

Five experts in the field addressed the audience with the ecosystem that allows problem gambling to thrive in our community.

Macquarie University Professor, Wayne Warburton who specialises in gambling harm, explained it was only as recent as 2011 when the American Society for Addiction Medicine changed the definition of what an addiction is after brain imaging research showed that what’s happening in the brain of a person who has behavioural addiction, like gambling, is the same as what’s happening in the brain of a person who has another addiction like drugs and alcohol.

He added that while most people gamble (73 per cent of residents in NSW), most people don’t have a problem with gambling. However, in NSW 6.6 per cent of people are at low risk of problem gambling, 2.6 per cent are at moderate risk and 1 per cent have a gambling addiction (this is comparable with world averages).

Professor Wayne Warburton, Academic specialist on gambling harm.

“It’s been established problem gambling affects relationships, emotional and psychological distress, health problems and financial problems,” Prof Warburton explained.

“Importantly, what researchers found was that 85 per cent of those negative impacts came from those defined as moderate risk, not the 1 per cent that we think would have this kind of drug level, kind of addiction.”

Next to speak was Crystal Hillery from Northern Sydney Local Health District (NSLHD) who spoke to the research project, Not Kids Business, where 175 high school students engaged as citizen scientists in a gambling research project.

Over a week, young people were asked to capture photos or screenshots of what they saw in terms of gambling promotion.

“The most concerning was that there were gambling pop-up ads on online free mobile games and free audio streaming accounts (music, podcasts, audiobooks),” Hillery said.

Young people also noted gambling ads in social media either as an ad or an influencer promoting gambling, arcade games similar to poker machines (where participants fed money into the machine to, hopefully, receive a token) and gambling ads in general internet browsing.

Crystal Hillery, Northern Sydney Local Health District, Not Kids Business.

As an outcome of the workshops held with the young people, Hillery said they have 265 letters from young people on the concern of how gambling is infiltrating their lives which will be sent to the Advocate for Children and Young People.

Paul Dovas, ASCCA CEO, continued on the exposure of ads and offered some horrifying statistics. Firstly, he explained the system is designed to find someone who’s likely to buy a product or service, regardless of whether that user is a child or adult. Another issue is that the system doesn’t differentiate users on the same IP address. For example, for a family using the same Wi-Fi, if an adult visits a gambling app or site, or clicks on a gambling ad, the system will continue to send gambling ads to any other device on that same network, like their child.

“For the financial year ending June 30 this year, 8.7 billion ad impressions were served to Australian eyeballs,” Davos said.

“That translated to $38.9 million spent either on sports betting, lottery, casino or poker ads. This doesn’t include TV, radio or print advertising. There were over 1,355 advertisers, and over 81,000 unique creatives with 4,600 different campaigns over the 12-month period.

Paul Davos, ASCCA CEO, spoke on digital gambling advertising.

“PointsBet was the highest spender at $2.5 million, with sportsbet delivering the most ads: 1.3 billion.

“Facebook attracted the most ads (2.9 billion) and most ad spend ($14 billion). Over 64 per cent of ads and ad spend was on social media platforms.”

The audience then heard what it’s like to have an addiction from The Mind Cafe founder and owner, Guy Morel, who has a gambling addiction which took him to the point of attempting suicide.

He described the act of gambling as his warm, safety cocoon when life became too hard to deal with.

“In early 2018, that’s all I did,” he told the audience.

“I’d sleep at my office and just drink and gamble every night. And that took me to a point where I didn’t want to be part of this world.”

Shame and denial prevented him from seeking support.

Guy Morel, Founder of The Mind Cafe, spoke on his lived experience with a gambling addiction.

He also spoke of his triggers, which include the upcoming weeks leading up to the Melbourne Cup. He says he still has to manage his addiction, and he has put several strategies in place to do that, including seeking support from his partner and friends, asking for help and putting in restrictions like his partner having access to their savings, not him.

One of the reasons for founding The Mind Cafe was to have an inclusive, supportive place for people to come to.

“The most beautiful part of what we’re about, I love when people come up and say, Guy, I know you struggle with gambling, I struggle with gambling too,” he explained.

“What happens is we create this little community where we can be there for each other.  I talk to about five or six people that come and see me regularly, and I will say, ‘How are you going?’ And if they say, ‘Not good’, I don’t judge them. I give them a hug and say, let’s start again, because you can start again. We just have to be there for each other. Support networks are so important.”

Finally, Alison Parkinson, Director of Office of Responsible Gambling (ORG) spoke of GambleAware help and the resources available to the community.

“GambleAware services are available around the state,” she said.

“They’re free, confidential and available 24/7 at 1800 858 858, and what’s really important to know is they don’t just support people who gamble. They also support family members and friends, and often it’s a family member that might reach out for support.”

Alison Parkinson, Director Office of Responsible Gambling.

She also spoke of the various campaigns ORG has developed, for example, to reach out to residents from non-English speaking backgrounds and developing educational resources that fit into the current education curriculum to begin the conversation of problem gambling with young people in school.

Where to from here?

The second half of the session included audience members breaking away into workshops to focus on the issues of problem gambling for seniors, young people and supporting professional development for staff engaged with members of the community who have an addiction.

Councillor, Kristyn Glanville closing address.

Solutions brainstormed by the groups included having late-night alternative venues for seniors (instead of remaining at pubs and hotels with poker machines), disrupting gambling ads access to children and young people, breaking the generational cycle of parents passing on their addictive habits to their children, limiting access hours to poker machines, supporting business that promote similar socialisation to pubs and clubs without the poker machines like the breweries in Brookvale and finally develop plans to help businesses who want to transition away from having poker machines at their venue.

Following on from this roundtable, a committee will develop a pathway for local, grassroots solutions.

Contribute to support the Manly Observer's independent local journalism

Become a MO supporter

News