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AND RISK BEING A LOSER BS (Investigator 96, 2004 May)The gambling
losses of
South Australian gamblers
prove that the theory of probability – derived from mathematics and
science
– cannot be overcome with lucky charms and superstition.
Poker
machine losses in
South Australia increased
every year since the "pokies" were introduced in 1994. The ten-year
total loss to gamblers is over $4,300 million, which averages to about
$2,800 for every woman, man and child.
South Australia has almost 15,000 gaming
machines in 600 venues. Australia-wide poker machines number 200,000
and
gamblers now lose $14,000 million annually.
Sixty percent of
people
who see counsellors
for gambling addiction are women. Many were attracted to hotels to
escape
depression or loneliness but got sucked into gambling. (2)
One woman who
turned to
gaming machines,
to ease loneliness when her boyfriend was absent, financed her losses
by
taking $45,000 from the service station she worked at. (3)
Many gamblers
similarly
try to recoup losses
by turning to crime or by selling family assets.
A 60-year-old
male pokie
player lost all
his savings, reacted by snatching a woman's handbag at a bus stop, and
had to appear in court. (4)
An estimate in 2001 was that 2,500 South Australian gamblers had committed crime as a result of their gambling. (5) Mathematically speaking the person who bets with the odds against him is likely to lose. The theory behind this is explained in books such as The Mathematics of Games and Gambling (1981, E Packel) and in textbooks on probability and statistical sampling. Poker machine owners have the odds pre-set to their advantage and hence are nearly always winners. They keep about 55% of what the players lose. This is enough to pay wages, taxes and other costs and still leave big profits. The government also wins because it gets as tax about 35% of the money the players lose and 10% as GST.
Consider a
simple
coin-tossing game: The
game consists of me tossing a coin five times and you tossing it four
times.
The person who gets more "heads" wins and we bet $20 per game.
Probably no "pokie" player would play this game with me. He knows that although I'll lose some games I will, over many games, get ahead (pun unintended). At poker machine venues the odds are stacked against players to about the same degree as my coin game so that most gamblers lose. Gamblers, however, can change – not their luck but their behavior. Flinders Medical Centre, for example, offers intensive therapy and counselling with a 90% success rate. Subjects listen
to taped
poker machine noises
and watch flashing lights for hours until the urge to play passes. They
also get corrected on erroneous or superstitious beliefs such as:
A tradesman, 48,
lost
$500,000 at the casino,
robbed a cashier of $136,000 and lost that too. (6)
A West
Australian bank
manager stole $19
million from his bank, lost it on various forms of racing, and was
sentenced
to five years. (7)
In March 2003 twelve gambling addicts caught in South Australia in one week had between them stolen $400,000. (8) Several of Adelaide's wealthy people have lost up to $10 million at the Casino!
Many South
Australian
adolescents are repeating
their parent's errors. The Sunday Mail reported:
"A
staggering 9000
highschool students are
gambling at least once a week…" This amounts to one sixth of Years 10,
11 and 12 students. (9)
The book A
Mug's Game
(1988, John
O'Hara) is a history of gaming and betting in Australia. "Mug" means a
stupid person and reminds us again that gamblers who bet against the
odds
will likely lose.
1 Sunday Mail 2004, January 18, p. 9; 2 The Advertiser 2003, September 20, p. 25 3 The Advertiser 2002, December 7, p. 18 4 The Advertiser 2003, March 15, p. 23 5 Sunday Mail 2001, October 7, p. 22 6 The Advertiser 2003, January 11, p 11 7 Sunday Mail 2003 August 10, p. 9; The Advertiser 2003, September 13, p. 7 8 Sunday Mail 2003, March 23, p. 22 9 Sunday Mail, 2004, March 21, p. 5 Rational
analysis of common beliefs on this website:
https://ed5015.tripod.com/ https://investigatormagazine.net |
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