Politics
Pokies and the Peninsula
The Hag
Federal is is building a five-star resort at Port Arthur and has promised not to include pokies. How noble!
ON the day the number of gamblers at risk has doubled in just five years Spike in punters at risk (And problem and risky gamblers were among the lowest income earners.), Hag hears rumours of yet another major Federal Hotels foray.
Federal is is building a five-star resort at Port Arthur and has promised not to include pokies. How noble!
But word has reached Hag that Federal is sniffing around other likely Tasman Peninsula pokies possibilities. Rumours abound on the peninsula that a number of properties are being/have been purchased. Likely targets talked of include the Bush Mill, the Eaglehawk Officers Quarters, somewhere in White Beach.
Hag ventures the possibility that if this is true, pokies certainly are not going to be excluded … after all that would be the perfect target market … lower income earners etc.
Extract from the Mercury story linked above:
The massive Roy Morgan survey last year was the first since 2000.
The rate of problem gambling was only 0.18 per cent, a drop from more than 1 per cent recorded in 1996.
But the number of at-risk gamblers — those likely to slide into serious difficulty — had doubled to 4500.
Among revelations in the study:
• 82 per cent thought the community had not benefited from pokies in pubs and clubs.
• More Tasmanians gambled than ever, 85 per cent, but much of that was on raffles.
• Two thirds of problem gamblers earned less than $20,000 a year.
• More than one in 30 Tasmanians had sought help for their own or others’ gambling.
• One in seven gambled on horses or greyhounds away from the track.
• One in 14 wagered on horses or dogs using TOTE or a bookmaker.