JO KADLECEK says there are parallels between the lobbying efforts of Australia’s gambling industry and those of the National Rifle Association in the US…
Sydney, Australia
Chances are you’re about to lose.
That’s what Australia’s National Consumer Protection Framework says is part of its online gambling messaging plan.
So are these:
“Think. Is this a bet you really want to place?”,
“What’s gambling really costing you?” and
“Imagine what you could be buying instead.”
The idea is for betting businesses to use these taglines and ads about the harms of online betting (which Dr Rebecca Jenkinson of the Australian Gambling Research Centre says don’t work) to warn consumers of the perils of online gambling, the fastest growing segment of the gambling industry. One in 10 Australians report having participated in online gambling in the last six months.
Combine these waging and betting sites with the thousands of poker machines (‘pokies’) in restaurants, pubs and clubs as well as casinos, and it’s little wonder that Australia has the greatest gambling losses in the world – 40 per cent greater than the nation that comes second.
Pokie machines in Australia. PICTURE: Shutterstock.
Gambling down under, as Superintendent Stu Cameron of the Wesley Mission says, is the “quiet destroyer of lives, pervasive in every suburb across the country. There’s not a demographic, ethnicity or a postcode who has not been impacted by gambling harm.”
Except for the quiet part, you could say the same about guns in the US where I grew up. Rifles, pistols, assault weapons, you name it, are as pervasive there as gambling is here, and likewise, there is no demographic unaffected by gun violence in the US I have friends in Australia who tell me they would never visit the US out of fear they’d be shot. I can’t blame them. It’s a scary place, and a very public terror.
“Gambling destroys families, communities and marriages; it’s a silent and gradual killer, often left out of the local news. There’s a reason for that: the industry’s lobbying efforts, as well as the government’s complicity, are equal to the National Rifle Association’s vast power in the US, as well as the lack of political tenacity to bring real reform for safety measures – like cashless gaming cards for pokies in pubs.”
My first job out of college was teaching at a public high school. But I never had to do “active shooter” training then, though now my nieces and nephews have grown up in an era when such drills are common at school. Whether in classrooms, malls, restaurants, or even churches, few places in today’s land of the free are safe from the use and misuse of guns.
Australia’s gambling impact is just as dangerous. True, it receives far less media attention than shootings, and its presence in everyday places like pubs and clubs seems far less threatening.
But that’s the problem. Gambling destroys families, communities and marriages; it’s a silent and gradual killer, often left out of the local news. There’s a reason for that: the industry’s lobbying efforts, as well as the government’s complicity, are equal to the National Rifle Association’s vast power in the US, as well as the lack of political tenacity to bring real reform for safety measures – like cashless gaming cards for pokies in pubs.
In fact, lobbyists for gambling in Australia took their cues from the NRA’s bullying form of strategy. On 13th May, 2013, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that senior executives for ClubsNSW travelled to Washington, DC, to “listen to NRA leaders on how to use a large membership base to force political outcomes”. They came back and created a Clubs Local Action Network – or CLAN – to help the 5.17 million members of ClubsNSW, the umbrella organisation for 1200 Returned & Service Leagues and other clubs, to effectively lobby their communities against meaningful reform.
One independent MP was even quoted in the article as saying, “The Australian poker machine industry and the NRA are out of the same mould.”
What’s different now is that a few church leaders are raising their voices, calling for gambling reform and carrying what Cameron calls “a prophetic role” in galvanizing the broader culture to respond. Christian leaders like Cameron and Dean Sandy Grant of the Sydney Anglican St Andrew’s Cathedral have joined Baptist Rev Tim Costello, a 25-year advocate for gambling reform, to form what looks like the beginning of a small evangelical movement to counter gambling harm.
And it’s beginning to gain momentum. Seventy six percent of the population in NSW favours cashless gambling cards that limit how much money can be lost on poker machines in pubs and clubs, according to a survey commissioned by the Wesley Mission.
Leaders within the Christian community – unlike the polarised church in the US on the issue of guns – are seeing a ripple effect on the mainstream culture, which also seems increasingly troubled by the tragedies gambling inflicts.
Their organising and outreach – and veteran advocacy like Costello’s steady long term pressure – strikes me as far more effective than the “warning” messages from the NCPF, which, by the way are listed on a PDF that sits under the Federal Government’s Social Services Communities and Vulnerable People website. On each subsequent page for each state is a small grey box at the top that provides the National Gambling Helpline number for “free, professional and confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”.
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The NRA and gun manufacturers are the only ones who profit from a lack of gun control in the US, as the daily news sadly attests. Likewise, government taglines, or fact sheets from ClubsNSW or Australasian Gaming Industry, hardly tackle the deadly problem of gambling harm. Their stories and videos, “support” and counselling links are the equivalent of “thoughts and prayers” from American politicians that don’t effect change.
Because let’s face it: as long as local governments benefit to the tune of $A6.6 billion in taxation revenue across all gambling sectors – which translates into $A25 billion lost from those who can least afford it – not much reform will happen.
As Cameron says, “We’re sick of seeing an industry, a system – principalities and powers – cynically targeting vulnerable communities as the key pillar of its business model, creating super-sized misery and suffering in its wake.”
Working toward real change is not for the faint of heart, as Costello has modelled. It requires wisdom, perseverance, compassion and faithfulness, qualities that, thankfully, outlast greedy lobbying efforts. And their benefits will never be measured in economic results.
Note: Tim Costello is a member of the Sight Advisory Board
