Aussie Responsible Gambling Awareness Week

Australians gamble more than just about anyone else; click on the chart at this link for some flavor of the data. Responsible Gambling Awareness Week in Australia ended on May 20; here's some information from Victoria, with links at the bottom to activities in other states. Presumably because of the Awareness Week, media reports on problem gambling in Australia are blossoming: from NPR, and from some Aussie sources, too. In Tasmania, there is a move afoot to limit pokie bets to $1 per play. A gambling addict gave evidence on the $1 limit to a legislative committee. "He recommended the committee spend an hour inside a poker machine room at a pub or club. 'Watch them leave their souls at the door,' he said." One Tasmanian gambling reformer suggests a little physical nudge: don't let pokie players sit down.

Aussie Pokies Controversy Boosts Self-Limitation and Self-Exclusion

We noted last month how the push for mandatory betting limits in Australia was, perhaps inadvertently, promoting enhanced self-exclusion as a sort of compromise from opponents of the mandatory limits. Voluntary self-limitation is another policy that is garnering support:

Australia's biggest pokies operator Woolworths has lobbied the federal opposition to tackle problem gambling with voluntary pre-commitment measures, despite the limited success of its own trial of optional bet limit cards....At last year's Woolworths annual general meeting, it was revealed only 11 per cent of registered players had taken up an offer of voluntary cards under the ALH trial, which started in 2009.

Eleven percent seems fairly significant to me. Meanwhile, in New South Wales, the potential to self-exclude from multiple venues, and to do so over the internet, also is being introduced:

WITH just the click of a button, problem gamblers living anywhere in NSW will be able to use a secure website to ban themselves from their local clubs....The technology allows problem gamblers to complete a legally binding self exclusion document in the presence of a gambling counsellor or a trained facilitator at their local club. Previously the individual had to visit each club individually.

Additionally, the problem gambler can now choose to ban themselves from multiple clubs rather than the time consuming process of visiting each venue and repeating the process time and again. Problem gamblers are provided with the following self-exclusion options: banning from the club, banning from any area of the club with poker machines and banning from any area of the club where gambling takes place such as poker machines, Keno and ClubTAB.

The internet sign-up is probably an upgrade over an earlier, unfortunate suggestion from Victoria, Australia, that those seeking to self-exclude call a hotline that, uh, promotes betting.

Mandatory Gambling Limits in Australia?

Electronic gaming machines in Australia are slated to be retrofitted with card readers or other devices that will be able to keep track of a player's wagers. The idea is to enforce limits to gambling -- and it will be mandatory for gamblers to pre-specify those limits, at least if the central government gets its way. The proposal is meeting significant opposition, with pubs, clubs, and hotels that host gaming machines involved in the backlash. One of the animating developments behind the "mandatory pre-commitment" movement is the 2010 Productivity Commission report on gambling that (once again) showed the extent to which profits drawn from electronic gaming machines come from problem gamblers. From Chapter 5 (pdf here) of the report:

"Based on available survey data, there are between 80 000 and 160 000 Australian adults suffering significant problems from their gambling (0.5 to 1.0 per cent of adults), with a further 230 000 to 350 000 experiencing moderate risks that may make them vulnerable to problem gambling (1.4 to 2.1 per cent of adults).

Although there are substantial difficulties in calculating gambling expenditure, it is estimated that problem gamblers account for 22 to 60 per cent of total gaming machine spending (average of 41). The likely range for moderate risk and problem gamblers together is 42 to 75 per cent."

US Military Gambling

Stars and Stripes has been investigating gambling on US military bases abroad. It turns out that in places like South Korea and Germany, there are slot machines located on-base:

The U.S. Army and Air Force generated more than $83.6 million in revenue via 1,191 slot machines in South Korea in fiscal 2007, according to data provided by the Army’s Family MWR [Morale, Welfare and Recreation] Command and the Air Force Personnel Center.

The Army, which also runs the machines on Navy facilities in South Korea, earned the lion’s share: about $73.5 million with 927 machines. As a comparison, the Army’s 1,550 machines in Europe, including machines the service runs on Air Force and Navy installations, brought in $38.5 million during the same time period.

South Koreans are not supposed to gamble on US military bases but it appears that some of that revenue did come from officially-ineligible Koreans. Some of the revenue comes from military personnel or family members who gamble pathologically.

At least one congressman wants to put an end to on-base gambling. I have some sympathy for that point of view, but I also have another suggestion. Require every person who wants to gamble at an on-base facility to have pre-committed to a daily, weekly, and monthly (and possibly annual) total bet limit. Rig the slots so that they only operate when the player inserts his card into the relevant card reader, so that the previously recorded betting limits can be enforced electronically. (That is, the betting limit cards are like "frequent player cards" that casinos use to track betting and to target freebies.) A gambler who is afraid of his own susceptibilities to addiction can then choose low limits, or even totally self-exclude by not acquiring a card with limits in the first place. This voluntary system is not foolproof, but it is helpful. If this suggestion is seen as too tepid, then the limits can be chosen by the military.

Back in 2005, the New York Times explored some of the problems associated with gambling on US military bases abroad.