Address of the Reverend Tim Costello
at the Launch of the "You Figure It Out" kit
on 6 June 2001at Melbourne Girls' College, Richmond
I would like to welcome you all and say it is fantastic there are a number of you here - because this is an overdue release. Really, when pokies were introduced and the aggressive form of gambling that we now see contributing to over 17% of all the State government revenue - a breathtaking figure - that is when there should have been these types of videos already in schools. That is when this sort of information that you are just getting now should have been there. If a responsible government, with responsible policies, had actually said, "We are about to launch this highly addictive product right out there in the community, we need to do some preparation work. We need to do some preparation work in terms of saying to the community, 'There will be a number of you who will actually become mesmerized by this."
The tragedy of the last few weeks of the mother being sentenced. She left her little boy baby in the car - a 19 month-old baby - is a story we are now unfortunately familiar with because the mesmerizing effect of playing the pokies means you lose all sense of time. The distraction time of that absolutely hypnotic state means you actually forget where you are, how time is going. Now we have known about those effects, we have known about them since we actually introduced pokies into this state but we have not had the corresponding information for consumers, and students, to actually be aware of them and that is a real failure of public policy.
It has taken a private organization, self-funded, living off the smell of an oily rag because they certainly have not been taking funds from the gaming industry to actually produce this video and I want to pay tribute to Tim Falkiner who will be speaking to you soon.
The video which you will see shortly is very simple. Against the $600 million of advertising spent by the gaming industry saying, 'Everybody is a winner - you can be a winner.' - this video tells the truth. I think it was Solznehitsyn who said one word of truth is more powerful than all the propaganda. This is one word of truth. It actually will show you factually, neutrally, without any of the sort of spin that you might expect from the industry or you might expect from someone like me who is pretty angry with the industry it will actually tell you very neutrally what your chances of winning are. It will help you understand that you cannot play the pokies consistently and win.
Now that might seem obvious if you are educated but to thousands of Victorians who are the target of that industry's $600 million advertising - and, by the way, you do not pay for that amount of advertising because it does not work - you pay for it because it does work. It actually, when you have the message coming out at you all the time, when you only see ads where people win, I am sure none of you have ever seen a gaming ad where someone loses, you actually start to say, "Well, of course, I must have a pretty good chance."
Something that has been in the news lately, that has surprised the federal government, who did not think they had any jurisdiction over pokies, is their discovery by an accident that they actually had constitutional jurisdiction to ban linked jackpots. Jackpots that say to people while they are just playing one machine because of the linked jackpots to the TAB, "I can actually play this machine and win $100,000, $200,000 or $1 million." Now the power of that message in a culture which has all its best and favorite TV programs organized around winning: Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, Weakest Link, Survivor, Big Brother - it is going to be one person at the end left standing, isn't there? Everyone else gets eliminated. And this is a culture that says being the winner is everything. At my kid's age, if they really want to be cruel to each other, they use different words to what I used at their age. When I was their age, if I was going to be cruel I would call someone a no-hoper. What they say is, "Gee- he's a loser!" That is actually what really hurts. So it is no surprise that the gaming industry with the best research came up as Crown Casino did with the slogan: "At Crown, everybody's a winner!" Isn't that reassuring - everybody's a winner.
Well let me say that this video will actually show you - it is untrue. Will show you factually why it is untrue. And it does not put emotion and argument - it just actually show you that you can't play at the card tables or suburban pokies or other forms of gambling - you can't play them regularly and win. So, I think it is long overdue, I think it is fantastic that this initiative of a group of people who have been concerned citizens that they went actually against that overwhelming tide of what ultimately is propaganda. When you think of most of the gaming ads, they are built on fantasy, illusion and deceit. Yes, they show stunning looking young women at casinos in micro-minis having a fantastic time; the best-looking blokes, they are having a fantastic time. They show all the beautiful set. The truth of gambling is that so many people have their lives destroyed, their hopes destroyed because they have believed that tidal wave of propaganda. And therefore one word of truth, which the Know the Odds video is, neutral, factual, therefore you can't really argue with it; it is really powerful.
Let me just finish by just saying that from my point of view it is about time that some of this stuff was made available. We live in a country which has 21% of the world's poker machines - that should shock you. We live in a country with million dollar jackpots - you know what the maximum jackpot is in Britain? I have just come from there - 15 pounds is the maximum jackpot. And the most you can put into a machine is a one pound coin - you can't put $50 and $100 notes in. It is a country like most other countries which says, "Yes, if people want to gamble, that's fine - but let's not prey on them and tell them lies and have such available machines that are so hungry - the average maximum hourly losses of English machines are A$113 - the maximum average losses of Australian machines are $720 per hour. $113 compared to $720. Now when you hear these things you just realize that this has just totally gone out of control. It has totally gone out of control. And with the industry therefore making so much money there is so much to spend on advertising. How desperate it is to have just one word of truth which just factually, rationally explains what your chances really are.
So, it is a great privilege to be patron and it is a great privilege to hope that this is watched by thousands of students and maybe by their parents also and that it actually has a real impact saying, "Let's not base our hopes of being a winner on something as false and deceitful - let's base it on something constructive. Thank you."
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