On 29/07/2017 at 00:49, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

Your assuming that the $1300 is spread evenly . Reality is that it's not.

No I'm not. Very aware that's an average figure. For many people it's even less. 

Furthermore, they are the western suburbs figures where the problem is presumably worse based on the fact that the western suburbs was put forward as evidence of a 'crisis'. So the figure would presumably be even less than $25 on average in other parts of Australia.

Realistically pokies are a harmless pastime for most and a big problem for a small minority - like many other leisure activities. I wouldn't care if the whole league banned pokies revenue, but if other clubs are doing it, we should be going after it to keep pace with our competitors.  

  On 29/07/2017 at 00:35, Ricky P said:

Would hardly call $1300 a year a crisis. That's $25 a week on a leisure activity. How much do you spend a week on leisure activities? 

If we continue with the 'even if averaged across everyone' notion, then we're talking $1300 out of, say, an age pension of less than $15,000. Which means yes, it would be called a crisis, when large chunks of society would be cutting into their heating and grocery budgets to cover their $25/week habit, given that their 'loose change' available is often already right on the line.

But as others have pointed out, the reality is a mix of most people never or rarely touching pokies, some people doing it once in a while to kill some time between watching games at the club or while waiting for someone, and then some people having their lives completely destroyed.

Another way to look at it, the average loss per person who actually uses poker machines is about $3,700. This includes approximately 1 in 6 of regular (weekly or more) pokie players who are classified as problem gamblers, with an average loss of more than $20,000 per year. That works out to more than 100,000 people who are being completely ruined by poker machines in any given year.

So, let's set aside the '$25/week on leisure'. How would you reckon most people would go with $20,000 a year less?

  On 29/07/2017 at 01:19, praha said:

Leisure activities are only allowed if the nanny approves. 

Thank you for that helpful input. Is the nasty society stopping you from fulfilling your true potential as a genius millionaire playboy philanthropist? Need a hug?

  On 29/07/2017 at 01:48, Ricky P said:

No I'm not. Very aware that's an average figure. For many people it's even less. 

Furthermore, they are the western suburbs figures where the problem is presumably worse based on the fact that the western suburbs was put forward as evidence of a 'crisis'. So the figure would presumably be even less than $25 on average in other parts of Australia.

Realistically pokies are a harmless pastime for most and a big problem for a small minority - like many other leisure activities. I wouldn't care if the whole league banned pokies revenue, but if other clubs are doing it, we should be going after it to keep pace with our competitors.  

Realistically, cholera isn't a problem for most people. Doesn't mean I'd be ok with my football club getting revenue by operating price-gouging sub-standard urban water systems in developing countries.

The Melbourne Football Club's poker machine revenue is substantially generated off ruined lives - even if we are just 0.5% of poker machine operations nationally, that works out to about 500 wrecked households directly through our machines, each year.

When did it become ok to say 'it is a bad thing that ruins many lives but we should make a choice to be involved in it unless it is made illegal for everyone'?

no one forces anyone to play these poker machines , but sadly the old and low income earners lose all , well lots of money on them.

if we didn't own some , another club would, I know thats doesn't make it right 

we do it because hawks do it and so on, but people need to say no .

i myself have never seen the interest in them. 

 

"It ruins some lives, enough to matter. Wish we weren't dependent on them. But hey, no one is forcing them and it's legal. It doesn't effect me. If we didn't, someone else would."

FMD...

 

  On 29/07/2017 at 06:58, Little Goffy said:

When did it become ok to say 'it is a bad thing that ruins many lives but we should make a choice to be involved in it unless it is made illegal for everyone'?

You've fudged your figures throughout your two posts but this is your central point, and it's correct: Melbourne has pokies machines and some of those machines would be used by problem gamblers.

I don't think it's the government's role to be banning things that some people become addicted to. And I know you haven't said that pokies should be banned, but if you think it's inappropriate for a football club to profit off 'broken lives' then surely it's inappropriate for anyone to? 

Virtually every activity a person can undertake has risk attached and it's up to individuals to assess that risk for themselves. If we're going to ban pokies then we should ban alcohol, smoking, driving, sex, video games...the list goes on and on. 

By extension, I don't think it's a football club's role to be making calls on something as morally ambiguous as pokies revenue. If the club decided to divert a percentage of their pokies revenue to organisations that address problem gambling then I think that would strike a good balance between being a positive civil society organisation and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.    

Pokies are really just an extension of what clubs are trying to do, which is increase their asset base and income opportunities by owing assets that seem to make sense to them - pubs and clubs. 

It would be great if we could diversify our income stream from being  just football related (which relies heavily on the AFL) and excluding pubs/pokies but in reality no club has been able to do this well in the past - and that's across all codes. The EPL, NFL, NBA all heavily rely on 'sport' related activity - gate receipts, merchandise sales and sponsorship  while the NRL more so than the AFL using pubs/clubs and pokies. 

  On 01/08/2017 at 05:54, Ricky P said:

You've fudged your figures throughout your two posts but this is your central point, and it's correct: Melbourne has pokies machines and some of those machines would be used by problem gamblers.

I don't think it's the government's role to be banning things that some people become addicted to. And I know you haven't said that pokies should be banned, but if you think it's inappropriate for a football club to profit off 'broken lives' then surely it's inappropriate for anyone to? 

Virtually every activity a person can undertake has risk attached and it's up to individuals to assess that risk for themselves. If we're going to ban pokies then we should ban alcohol, smoking, driving, sex, video games...the list goes on and on. 

By extension, I don't think it's a football club's role to be making calls on something as morally ambiguous as pokies revenue. If the club decided to divert a percentage of their pokies revenue to organisations that address problem gambling then I think that would strike a good balance between being a positive civil society organisation and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.    

Actually, the figures I 'fudged' were just the balance of different estimates from different published research, which I quickly looked back over just to get the ballparks, so they're pretty reasonable. The estimates vary in context and so forth but there is a general accord on the categories and the rough amounts involved in each category. My numbers aren't fudged and it is disingenuous of you to suggest they are.

I do indeed think it is inappropriate for anyone to profit from broken lives. But I also recognise that people are ultimately free to make their own choices and are accountable for the consequences. Though it is tedious, as always, to hear again the tired pointless line of 'well, if you ban that you have to ban walking across the street or opening an umbrella'. Because with poker machines, the 'product' has been specifically crafted to manipulate the consumer to create and maintain addiction. If a shoe was designed to seem comfortable but gradually damage your foot in such a way that you needed to always wear that specific shoe brand... yeah, something tells me it would be banned and very few people would say 'aw, but shucks they made a choice to wear it'.

The 'personal choice' rhetoric breaks down when you've got systems for creating addiction, and for deliberate manipulation of addiction. I once had the experience of actually literally choking on my weetbix (I thought it was just an expression!), seeing an add for phone-based and online gambling which contained nothing but a series of addiction-trigger stimulus (brief flashes of the various physical behaviours and paraphenalia associated with the addiction). It was textbook perfect. Someone, somewhere, had read academic research into the psychology of addiction and took the lesson from it that 'this is great, we can reach our target anywhere and stimulate their addiction impulse'. It was a moment of blatant clarity of purpose that sums up the values of the industry.

The key for me is all about the decision of some to set about profiting by knowingly exploiting addiction. The spaces designed to mask the passing of time, the relentless sounds and light stimulus, the programmed system of irregular but frequent small payouts to stimulate reward sensations and mask the speed of losses, the creation of enclosed, physically confusing spaces without any line of sight to anything but more poker machines. All of that stuff, it is identifiable, has been designed based on research and refined over decades, and without question is hugely unethical.

One specific change that would make a huge difference to the addiction/life destruction aspect of poker machines would be to limit the number of machines permitted at any given venue. Small pubs with a half-dozen machines tucked along one side do much less damage than the machines set up in extensively planned networks designed on the advice of professional addiction psychologists (who are these people that can do that and live with themselves?). Small venues can't commit the kind of professional and architectural resources it takes to create a full 'addiction bubble' space - the mental fight is just that little bit more in the consumer's favour.

So, there's the best answer I can offer to accommodate people who enjoy a session on the pokies. Small venues with other stimulus readily available will reduce (but of course won't eliminate) the scale of problem gambling and of severe, life-destroying addiction, without banning poker machines outright.

Unfortunately, this also means that the big-venue poker machine operators, such as football clubs, are the most serious culprits when it comes to pushing addiction.

Will all that in mind - 

It is my opinion that the Melbourne Football Club, being a sporting and social club that is a part of the community first and a corporate venture second and by necessity only, should avoid unethical or socially destructive sources of income. Large-venue poker machine operations are highly destructive and unethical, so it follows that the Club should make it a strategic goal to remove these from its income stream.

I'd be interested to see if anyone can argue against this being a completely fair, calm and responsible opinion.

A fish rots from the head. How much money do you suppose betting companies pour into the AFL's pockets?

Nobody puts a gun to anybody's head and makes them put money into the pokies. People need to take responsibility for their actions, not blame the owners / operators of the machines. 

I'd be all for MFC buying more if it allows us to put more money into the football department, or allows us to ditch the NT games, or reduces the price of memberships.

$10m per year.

If we dumped pokies without replacing the revenue we would cease to exist. People are forgetting how hard it was for us to get a Back-Of-Jumper sponsor recently. this is a much bigger amount than BOJ sponsorship.

So, right now our choice is to accept that the money comes from a source some dont like, or fold.

Maybe the people complaining could find us the $10 million.

I hate pokies btw, stupid damn money pits they are. I am pragmatic enough to accept the coin though. North can fold before us.

  On 02/08/2017 at 01:40, poita said:

Nobody puts a gun to anybody's head and makes them put money into the pokies. People need to take responsibility for their actions, not blame the owners / operators of the machines. 

I'd be all for MFC buying more if it allows us to put more money into the football department, or allows us to ditch the NT games, or reduces the price of memberships.

Nobody puts a gun to a person's head in regard to playing the pokies, but it can be just as addictive as any gambling pastime, probably more so. When families suffer because some addicted person is frittering away their money and the kids are in poverty, just saying it's all "free will" doesn't quite cut it.

What's worse is that the programmed winnings are only 70-80% of the players' "investments". Sooner or later everyone loses their money. It amazes me that most pokie players don't realise this and they keep going. Pokies are the best example of the idea that "gambing is taxation for the innumerate".

Owners and operators are not absolved of problems with addiction. You need to study the psychological ploys to keep people attracted, plus the pay-out mechanisms and machine programming that keep people hooked.

IMHO, they're a blight on society and football, and the sooner they're gone the better. Not that with the dependence on their revenue by clubs that's ever likely to happen.

I was going to go into a big spiel but thought better of it as not in the mood of being shot down by the do gooders on the board.

Go Team.

  On 02/08/2017 at 01:40, poita said:

Nobody puts a gun to anybody's head and makes them put money into the pokies. People need to take responsibility for their actions, not blame the owners / operators of the machines. 

I'd be all for MFC buying more if it allows us to put more money into the football department, or allows us to ditch the NT games, or reduces the price of memberships.

People don't set out to become hooked and destitute when they first see a poker machine. The "physical" effect these things can have on the human brain is now well and truly scientifically established - so "people taking responsibility" is a ridiculously naive and ignorant oversimplification.

The unsuspecting "losers" have no idea what's coming. The multi-billion dollar industry has left nothing to "chance" in ensuring the machines prey on the proven weaknesses of the vulnerable; down to every last detail such as the colours & sounds used.

Their use as a revenue source is a blight on the sport as a collective and the AFL - who are the self proclaimed moral and ethical role models of our community.

Yeah, the issue is not going anywhere anytime soon, but don't kid yourself, it's filthy money.

Australian's have always gambled. Not saying Pokies are cool or good, but Australian's bet on anything. 

Sh!t i should have put $100's on Nought last Saturday, i thought about it long and hard!

If Pokies disappear something else will appear. I don't go to the footy much anymore because of all the Betting Advertising and the fact that between Quarters the crap music is far too loud. 

The Match Day Experience is being hijacked by The Betting Industry...

  On 29/07/2017 at 06:58, Little Goffy said:

The Melbourne Football Club's poker machine revenue is substantially generated off ruined lives - even if we are just 0.5% of poker machine operations nationally, that works out to about 500 wrecked households directly through our machines, each year.

I think it really comes down to which club/s those 500 support. I mean, I have no problem with my tax dollars going back to the club via a Collingwood supporter's centrelink payments.

Interesting....

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-looks-to-reduce-football-clubs-reliance-on-poker-machines-20170816-gxxrzk.html

 

  On 17/08/2017 at 03:52, Tricky said:

Interesting....

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-looks-to-reduce-football-clubs-reliance-on-poker-machines-20170816-gxxrzk.html

 

Here here, about time.

Getting rid of pokies will not reduce problem gambling, in the old days the men would go to pubs back room and play two up, its becoming a nanny state you can't save everybody from themselves, banning things never stopped any activity in the past,  Al Capone came about because of prohibition in the United States,   it made him a very wealthy man, there are no easy solutions, banning drugs that worked no one takes them right.

  On 17/08/2017 at 06:04, don't make me angry said:

Getting rid of pokies will not reduce problem gambling, in the old days the men would go to pubs back room and play two up, its becoming a nanny state you can't save everybody from themselves, banning things never stopped any activity in the past,  Al Capone came about because of prohibition in the United States,   it made him a very wealthy man, there are no easy solutions, banning drugs that worked no one takes them right.

it's not as black and white as that. And there are places in the world where prohibition works quite well.

  On 17/08/2017 at 07:20, daisycutter said:

it's not as black and white as that. And there are places in the world where prohibition works quite well.

 I doubt that very much, prohibition does not work those places just have it under ground. Give me example where you think its working

  On 17/08/2017 at 06:04, don't make me angry said:

Getting rid of pokies will not reduce problem gambling, in the old days the men would go to pubs back room and play two up, its becoming a nanny state you can't save everybody from themselves, banning things never stopped any activity in the past,  Al Capone came about because of prohibition in the United States,   it made him a very wealthy man, there are no easy solutions, banning drugs that worked no one takes them right.

Well, at least you got that bit right. 

  On 28/07/2017 at 10:50, Darkhorse72 said:

Revenue figures from pokies for Victorian clubs.  Ours are up slightly, but a long way from the top of the table. 

 

http://www.theage.com.au/business/hawthorns-23-million-haul-wins-pokies-premiership-20170728-gxl3q5.html

I would be interested to know how many people on this site actually play these things. I'm not trying to be elitist, it's just that Im sure that most of us find them stupefyingly boring.

Who does play them though?

  On 17/08/2017 at 09:43, Moonshadow said:

Well, at least you got that bit right. 

Well what did I get wrong then 

  On 17/08/2017 at 09:49, leave it to deever said:

I would be interested to know how many people on this site actually play these things. I'm not trying to be elitist, it's just that Im sure that most of us find them stupefyingly boring.

Who does play them though?

Pathological gambling is a progressive illness and a psychological disorder so think yourself lucky you find them boring. In fact, the compulsive gambler is generally male, with an IQ above 120 - so you are right, not most of us here!