By Kathy Marks

02 September 2002

Pokies: the money-spinner that's proving to be rather costly

I poked my head around the entrance to Yarra Bay Sailing Club in eastern Sydney the other day, expecting to find a boathouse, a merchandise shop, perhaps a bar and lounge area. Instead I was greeted by banks of electronic fruit machines, known here as "pokies", and solitary men and women hunched over them.

Australians are the world's biggest gamblers, and the relaxation of licencing laws has turned virtually every pub and club into a mini-casino. Pokies have colonised space once reserved for dining and live music; in pubs, whole rooms are set aside for the machines and drinkers strain to hear conversations drowned out by clunking and whirring.

Gambling has been part of Australian culture since the days of the First Fleet, and the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge were built with the proceeds of state lotteries. But it is now a massive social problem and the country's Asian immigrants appear to be most susceptible, partly because of language difficulties and cultural dislocation.

The largest array of pokies is found in Sydney's Star City Casino, which lays on a courtesy bus service for Vietnamese residents of the outlying suburb of Cabrammatta. Asian people represent nearly half of Star City's clientele, despite making up only 5 per cent of the population.

Now Casino Canberra, three hours away, is following Star City's example, offering Cabrammatta folk a free shuttle bus and a weekend in the national capital for only £20. There is just one catch, though: they have to spend £350 in the casino.

The scheme has been denounced as a cynical ploy by senior Vietnamese figures, who say that gambling addiction has already reached crisis proportions in the community. A Cabrammatta councillor, Thang Ngo, called on the government to prevent casinos from luring people into temptation.