Quote:
Originally Posted by astro39
I can think of one, actually a pretty good one, don't think its been mentioned here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by astro39;
I wouldn't have thought so given the well established fact that pokies (for one) are causing huge damage in the Australian community - do you really think the "moral" angle of the anti-online-poker stance would carry any weight if instead of decreasing gambling it would have the opposite effect? It's an argument that would definitely appeal to an indepedent like Wilkie, if not to those politicians in the pockets of the Australian Hotels Association (which is effectively both Labor and Liberal).
Are there any other arguments out there anyone can think of apart from the ones already covered? Surely have to be some more.
Terrible argument.
Firstly it is not an established fact that any particular form of gambling causes greater harm. There are a few problem gamblers and they do have problems that cost them and their families dear but the thing is for them - better help and better self exclusion. Stopping any one form of gambling does nothing to help them at all. You have just swallowed an anti gambling line which is unsupported by the evidence. See pokie, bad pokie is not evidence. The evidence is that a degen gonna degen pretty much regardless of any ban - help and self exclusion/limits matter bans do not help.
Secondly, arguing that banning online gambling helps protect the casinos and state revenues is hardly news, why do you think the ban happened? Why do you think the act happened? It was not just a bit of red meat chucked to the antis it was a coalition of powerful lobby groups. Most supporters of the IGA have a financial interest in the legal gambling.
Thirdly, the main argument for online gambling and poker is one of freedom and civil liberties. It fits in to the free Internet movement, locks in some libertarians of both the left and the right to the cause but most importantly is RIGHT! I should as an adult be able to play 1c/2c poker over the internet with my gran just as I can across a kitchen table.
Anyway, please don't get sucked into the anti gambling/competitors myths about particular forms of gambling.
Problem Gamblers are stable in number - even in the face of new technologies. We have had the pokies and the rise of Internet gambling but the number of PG is stable, indeed some reports suggest a fall.
Internet Gambling offers better opportunities for self exclusion and easier warnings for potential problem gamblers, easier deposit and time limits set by the player. Essentially online the problem can be mitigated more readily if done properly. This means that tackling the pokies question put by the antis is not about condemning them ourselves, it is about how do you help problem gamblers instead?
An argument that poker can be +ev and the rest can't be - to distance poker from other gambling is a terrible argument on many levels.
Firstly 99% don't get your point at all. Of the other 1% who do most of them think that this makes it worse as it is other players exploiting the poor degenerate problem gambler so you as a winning poker player have the moral equivalence of the casino tycoon or pokie machine supplier, who they hate btw.
Secondly, throwing pokie users, suppliers, owners under the bus rather than having a coalition with them is just pushing away a larger potential group of supporters who value their freedoms and are sympathetic to gambling. Similarly, why set out to try and alienate the casino lobby and casino players?