Drew Rooke - One Last Spin: the power and peril of the pokies

ONE LAST SPIN

Drew Rooke is a freelance journalist based in Sydney. His work deals with contemporary political and cultural issues, and has appeared in publications such as The Saturday Paper , Meanjin , and The Sydney Morning Herald . Drew was a finalist in the 2015 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers, and One Last Spin is his first book.

Scribe Publications
1820 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia
2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

First published by Scribe 2018

Copyright Drew Rooke 2018

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

9781925713008 (Australian edition)
9781947534483 (US edition)
9781925548921 (e-book)

A CiP entry for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

scribepublications.com.au
scribepublications.com

To all those in Australia who have been harmed by poker machines

Contents

Australia has pokies the way America has guns .

- Dr Katy ONeill , gambling counsellor

Glossary

AGA American Gaming Association

AGRC Australian Gambling Research Centre

AHA Australian Hotels Association

EGM Electronic gaming machine

GTA Gaming Technologies Association

IGT International Game Technology

LDW Losses disguised as wins

PID Player information display

RNG Random number generator

RTP Return to player [percentage]

VLTs Video lottery terminals

Prologue

Im standing outside Canterbury League Club in Belmore, in Sydneys west. Several storeys high and occupying an entire block, the club towers above the drab nearby shops and single-storey houses like a monolithic mega-mall. Lining the entrance driveway is an ostentatious tropical garden with groomed hedges, lilies, palm trees, cycads, water jets, and a three-tiered waterfall. In an hour or so, when night falls, the whole garden will be spectacularly illuminated in multi-coloured spotlights.

I follow the driveway around to a porte-cochre so large that over six cars can fit under it, and then walk through a revolving glass door into a foyer that is more extravagant than those of the finest hotels in the city. On either side of the service desk are two ten-plus-metre-high cream columns with fine carvings at their base. Around the walls hang cylindrical, three-metre-long golden lamps that look like oversized organ pipes. In the middle of the foyer, beneath an enormous sky dome fifteen-or-so metres above, another waterfall flows down into and through another tropical garden. Large plastic butterflies hang on invisible threads of string, birdsong echoes from speakers hidden in the foliage, and a faint smell of chlorine permeates the air.

Welcome, sir. Are you a member or a visitor? asks a uniformed young lady standing at the service desk.

Just a visitor, I say.

She signs me in, and then, with a wide smile, says, Have a lovely afternoon, sir.

When I reach the top of the escalator at the right of the service desk, it feels as if Ive landed in Vegas. Before me is a sprawling sea of over 600 poker machines, rows and rows of them filling the entire floor. All combine garish artwork and puerile names like Queen of the Nile, More Chilli, Buffalo, Black Panther, Five Dragons, and Wheres the Gold?. Around half are occupied by men and women of all different ages and from all different backgrounds, most sitting silently with glazed faces in a kind of stupor, tapping, slapping, or hammer-fisting the buttons.

Large flatscreen televisions attached to columns around the area display multiple different jackpots, each linked to a separate bank of machines. The figures rise incrementally, ticking over and over as they are fed by every bet made. $21,860.22 50 61. $9317.80 86 98. $2309.42 69 92. There are no windows or natural lighting, and the ceiling is so low that it seems to press down on the tops of the machines. Hanging from it are golden chandeliers, and security cameras like bulging, black shiny eyes. Small black-and-white clocks are positioned inconspicuously around the walls. The whole space feels designed to disorientate the patrons and dissolve any sense of time.

Smartly dressed waiters and waitresses wander the floor. They speak to customers with flight-attendant friendliness, but amongst themselves they speak without pretence. As two walk near me, I overhear one complain to his colleague about work. What are you complaining about? his colleague says sarcastically, rolling her eyes and gesturing towards the gamblers. Its such lovely company that we have here.

I take a seat at a machine in a bank of ten. Attached to the side of the machine is a small menu for food and drinks. At the bottom of the menu is the message, A range of complimentary beverages and small snacks also available upon request.

The woman beside me does not notice me arrive. A black-leather handbag hangs from her right shoulder, and a brown-leather purse sits in her lap. Slouched deep in the padded stool, she plays two machines simultaneously Five Koi and Big Red. Her left hand plays one, her right hand the other, and her head moves from screen to screen as if she is watching an enthralling tennis rally.

I grab the attention of one of the waiters to buy a beer. Sorry you have to order using the machine, she says, pointing at the service button on the screen. I do as instructed, and, moments later, another waiter arrives, holding a computer tablet, and takes my order.

Thanks, he says as I pay. Wont be too long, sir.

Two minutes later, a smiling young woman delivers my drink.

There you go, sir, she says. Have a lovely afternoon, sir.

My neighbour gives up on the Five Koi machine, but persists with Big Red. Few wins come. She grows agitated, her hand hitting the buttons harder and harder. When the credit dwindles to $10, she reduces her bet from $2 a spin to $1. Then, when the credit is at zero, she hurriedly feeds in a $50 note. The machine lets out a cheerful bleep as it registers the new funds.

The woman raises her bet back to $2 a spin, and gambles on without missing a beat. Then, soon afterwards, she stands and walks in the direction of the ATM. The machine still has $30 credit, but she hasnt bothered to reserve it. She returns minutes later, clutching her purse in one hand and two $50 notes and a $100 note in the other. She adjusts herself on the stool, feeds in $50, and hits SPIN. As she does this, she puts the other two notes back in her wallet.

After just a few minutes, the $50 has vanished. The machine bleeps again as she feeds it the other pineapple-yellow note.

On the very next spin, a loud BRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG rings out. The message, Six free games, appears on the screen. She hits SPIN, and the reels gallop along automatically. When the free games finish, the credit counter reads $345.60. A looped, computerised rendition of Johann Strausss celebratory Radetzky March plays, and a fountain of gold coins spurts out from the bottom of the screen, each coin branded with the word WIN. The blank expression on her face doesnt change as she presses COLLECT and slips the barcoded receipt spat out by the machine into her purse. She swivels on her chair as if about to leave. But when shes almost on her feet, she swivels back to face the machine, feeds it another $20, and continues gambling.

I roam the floor again. As I do, an excited female voice comes through the speakers. It calls out a name and then a membership number. No gamblers near me seem to even hear it; they remain focused on their machines. I ask one of the staff members what the announcement is about. So were running a promotion, the besuited man says. All you have to do is put your membership card into the machine, and the more you play, the more points you get, and the more chances you have of going in the draw to win. The prize is a cruise for two. Fifty trips are being given away.