- In short: One of the first cashless gaming trials in NSW found the technology made little difference to the behaviour of gamblers.
- The Wests New Lambton trial has received criticism from gambling reform advocates, who say it did not include a card with binding and default limits.
- What’s next?: The Independent Panel on Gaming Reform will provide findings from an expanded statewide cashless gaming trial.
Why would you expect changing the method of payment to effect spending habits…?
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Gambling shouldn’t be privatised. Idk why we allow people to profit from addiction. Their incentive is just to make it worse.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 6 months ago
Personally I’d say we should take the approach we did to smoking. Ban its advertising, severely restrict where it can be done (in this case, ban pokies outside of casinos), and tax the shit out of it.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Yeah nah, the sin tax on smoking already heavily penalises less privileged people and is very ends-justify-means. Plus gambling is much older than nicotine in terms of habits humans continue to do.
Smoking stuff is a pissweak compromise position trying to undo harm by massive corporations with powerful vested interests. Without mass market cigarettes and advertising no way so many people do it for the mild stimulant hit. Restricting gambling is more like trying to stop stimulant drug use in general vs smoking specifically.
Besides, while I don’t gamble I can acknowledge that a few bets or a game of cards can be pretty fun. If we can manage the framework it happens in, such that the goal is a good balance between fun and harm vs the capitalist framework of maximum wealth extraction then I don’t see the harm. It’s not like a game of poker is a worse decision than a bottle of wine or sitting in watching tv vs going for a run or something.
ryannathans@aussie.zone 6 months ago
Taxing the shit out of it results in poorer outcomes for gamblers. The average minimum return rate is already defined legally, for pokies it’s something like they must return ~90% per hour. Adding more tax on top would result in a lower return rate
50MYT@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Gambling in general, not just pokies.
Neato@ttrpg.network 6 months ago
If it were just public then it’d be the government exploiting people’s addiction. Honestly I see no way out of this besides regulating it out of profitability.
Maybe casinos have to have a net odds at like 50:50.1 and then charge for entry. Big wins would probably not happen so it might not work. But I’ve never met anyone who gambled regularly and it wasn’t a problem.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
So it’s a bit cooked but basically humans do stuff that’s harmful, governments supplying it at least removes profit incentives.
You can’t ban gambling out of existence but a government body can be set up in such a way that odds are fairer, only less addicting games are offered (e.g. no pokies because flashing lights and sounds are satanic), the rooms have natural light and clocks etc. Any money made goes into gambling assistance programs or community improvement or whatever.
Would people still get hurt? yes. Would there be corruption? yes. But there’s no way it can be worse than private operations which still have all the same problems with less transparency and being harder to regulate, plus the profit incentive.
cuppaconcrete@aussie.zone 6 months ago
The idea is that if the government gets all the profit from gambling then that money can go into social services to support the people who bankrupt themselves from gambling.
zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 6 months ago
The government also gets their cut from taxes, and poltical parties from donations, so they are likewise incentivised