Times article says that per capita, an Australian loses $1200 Australian dollars. That electronic pokie machines are ubiquitous in big cities and small towns.

Maybe they should teach probability and statistics in high school. And how owners of these machines make money...

There are two types of people addicted to poker machines here: the players themselves and the state governments who collect taxes from them.

Not a gambler myself, but have known quite a few.

My late wife Jenny used to be a counselor at Lifeline, her specialty was finance and gambling.

She said gambling is the hardest addiction to break. Depressingly low success rates, lots of recidivism. And the belief that probability theory didn't apply to them, just like smokers and lung cancer.

Fact: a much higher percentage of people kick smoking than gambling.

Now how are we ever going to get government bureaucracies to kick the dependence on pokies? Maybe the machines, by law, need to be made uniformly unattractive, like cigarette packets were. "Push this button to support your gambling addition".

It's a tax on stupid people and the innocents around them.

NSW is the poker machine capital of the world. The world's biggest owner of poker machines is Woolworths (via their pubs subsidiary) and I think they own about a third of the machines that are legally operating in this state.

Add that to various state lotteries, Keno, horse racing, dog racing and TAB and online betting for just about every sport, including motor racing. There's even a mob now that doesn't offer its own games but runs books on the outcomes of everyone else's.

Maybe the machines, by law, need to be made uniformly unattractive, like cigarette packets were.

They tried that some years ago - to a small extent. Words like "WIN" and "CASINO" were banned from the neon signs in pubs and clubs to try and reduce encouragement to just pour the rent into the machines. I doubt it worked in the long term.

To me, it makes no difference if poker machines exist or not.

Not a gambler, and I have no pity for those who do.

We all have the choice if we want to gamble. Those who do presumably want to, and who am I to want to curtail someone else's freedom to choose? This obsession with wanting to save people from themselves is just another face of the nanny state.

We're all adults here, and it's up to each of us to exercise our willpower and decide for ourselves. If you decide you want to gamble, then it's up to you to deal with the consequences and take personal responsibilty - something that is sorely missing these days.

Someone suggested we remove all safety and warning signs off everything and then the stupid side of the population will soon sort itself out. JJ

One of the reasons I boycott Woolworths.

Shop at Aldi. Saved enough in 18 months for a Europe holiday. Way to go!

There's a personality type that's highly attracted to gambling. I know an ex-gambler for whom things got so bad that he had to take a 12 step course and now considers himself a recovering gambler, the same way that an alcoholic never fully recovers. He once knocked back an invitation to a show at the Lyric Theatre with us because it's adjoined to the Star City Casino. He told me very solemnly that he dare not go anywhere near a casino.

I can hang around a casino for hours just watching people lose their money with no desire to join any game.

I've never even visited a casino... I'd be bored silly.

There's an Aldi in the adjoining suburbs, but I never liked the fact that they don't provide bags. Sorry all you plastic-bag haters, I like the convenience of them. When I was a kid the supermarkets provided a choice of brown paper bags, or cardboard boxes they'd have in a big pile. Why can't they do that again? The boxes are already there.

What would you rather do, get plastic bags to throw away or take a 3 week holiday through France and Italy?

I just keep a stash of bags in the boot.

Not sure of the reason why but I used to venture to the casinos on the Gold Coast and Canberra in the years prior to Sydney getting its first casino but once Sydney Harbour Casino (Now called The Star) was opened I never set foot inside one since. There's no real reason why, apart from losing interest in it. Games played most often were Sic Bo and Roulette.

World's largest slot-machine maker, IGT of Las Vegas,
now owned by a large private Italian company with international gaming holdings ( ??)

Second largest, Aristrocrat, still appears to be Australian owned.

QUOTE: World's largest slot-machine maker, IGT of Las Vegas,
now owned by a large private Italian company with international gaming holdings

Second largest, Aristrocrat, still appears to be Australian owned.

I think Len Ainsworth's sons run this operation now. Len was the company founder.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-19/australias-pokie-king-len-ainsworth-on-70-years-in-the-business/8945524