All about Adult Poker

Source: Daily Telegraph ()

WE EXPECT our politicians to speak the truth. We expect our media to report the truth. Yet when it is the anti-gambling lobby, all we seem to hear are lies to whip the community into a frenzy of pokie paranoia.

If the community wishes to debate poker machines, let’s do it on fact.

Poker machines were first legalised in NSW in 1956 as a source of revenue for clubs to meet their constitutional requirements to support the community. This decision has benefited every single person in NSW.

In addition to the subsidised meals, drinks, entertainment, fitness facilities, aged-care centres, donations to junior sporting group and NRL teams, clubs also pay in the vicinity of $1 billion a year in tax. That helps pay teachers, nurses and fire-fighters, as well as providing infrastructure such as roads, schools and hospitals.

When do-gooders demand governments ban poker machines they are asking government to remove a legitimate form of entertainment and increase our taxes by $1 billion.

Does problem gambling exist in Australia? Of course it does. There will always be a percentage of the population who gamble more than they can afford. They may do it on poker machines, at the race track, even on the stock market.

What needs to be understood, however, is the extent of problem gambling in Australia. Is it out of control, as Tim Costello regularly claims? Do we face a gambling epidemic?

The fact is problem gambling has been on the decline across Australia for a number of years. This has been achieved not through good luck but rather through a concerted effort by State Governments and industry.

The most recent independent report into gambling in NSW found that 0.8 per cent of the adult population are problem gamblers.

On top of this, a combined 3680 machines have been removed from the community since 2000 in NSW as a result of a trading system developed by the NSW Government.

By comparison, about 20 per cent of adults …

Source: Times Online ()

Now we know why the authorities were so contemptuous of those savers demanding
their cash back – because they think that we’re all mug punters who will
blow the lot on internet poker.

The Gambling Commission’s new study of Britain’s habits was supposed to
provide the chips for Gordon Brown’s new war on betters. Instead its survey
of 9,000 people found “no increase at all in problem gambling”. The chairman
admits this was “something of a surprise – and a relief too”. For others,
however, the lack of evidence that we’re a nation of gambling addicts was
less a relief than a letdown. Like many a loser, they moaned that the result
was rigged.

This highlights a real growing problem – the rise of advocacy research.
Instead of spinning the wheel and seeing what evidence emerges, many
researchers now start from a political assumption, then look for “facts” to
fit. Advocate researchers typically aim to “discover” that their pet social
problem is even worse than imagined, and that we are all at risk. Playing up
the issue of problem gambling is a favourite game of those whose real aim is
to whip the mass of “problem people” into line. So they were shocked when
the commission survey denied them the “right” result.

Of course there are individual tragedies. But half the adult population –
excluding those who only play the lottery – admit to gambling, and we are
not on the slippery slope to ruin. You can bet your life, however, that the
advocate researchers will soon find some new spin for the Government. Trying
to win our Presbyterian Prime Minister’s support for bashing gamblers?
That’s what I call a racing certainty.

On a losing night at Romford dogs last Friday, the one thing that made me
smile news of the England rugby union team’s humiliation by South
Africa. Ever since they won the …

Source: Sydney Morning Herald ()

RUSSELL CROWE and Peter Holmes a Court’s wish to oust poker
machines from South Sydney Leagues Club is headed for a boardroom
reality check.

“Show us the money: that’s what it boils down to,” its chairman,
Bill Alexiou-Hucker, said of the proposal by the actor and the
Souths’ rugby league club’s other co-owner. “The board will make
its decision on financial data and not on moral vision.”

With 60 poker machines producing a monthly income of $150,000
when the club is operating - it is being rebuilt at present - they
generate about half the club’s annual $3.5 million income.

Mr Holmes a Court proposed the “no pokies” idea at a meeting
with Mr Alexiou-Hucker on Tuesday, when he outlined his vision for
the club’s future.

Yesterday Mr Holmes a Court denied he and Crowe were pursuing a
moral campaign on poker machines. He argued that the machines had a
bad effect in low-income communities.

“It comes at a cost. We now understand what the cost to the
community is,” Mr Holmes a Court said. “We understand that a high
percentage of gambling revenue comes from problem gamblers, so
you’ve got to look at the net benefit of having poker machines.

“We’re not doing this to win a beauty parade. We’re not doing
this for moral reasons. We’re doing this because we think it is
right for our club, and it is what our sponsors and supporters are
saying is good business.”

A spokesman for ClubsNSW, Jeremy Bath, said the most recent data
showed the number of problem gamblers in the state had fallen.

“The 1999 study by the Productivity Commission found the
incidence of problem gambling was 2.55 per cent of the adult
population. The prevalence study last year found it had fallen to
0.8,” he said. “That is still a great number of people, but the
hysteria we’ve heard is not backed up by the facts.”

The Holmes a Court proposal has yet to finalised. It will be
considered by the club’s finance committee before being forwarded
to the board.

“We …

Source: Akron Beacon Journal ()

Major, major bouquets to Charlie Wagner a senior at Akron’s Firestone High School, where he is a member of the school’s International Baccalaureate program and the swim team who is trying to get help for a potentially lifesaving project he initiated last year.

‘’Over a year ago, I heard that many of the students at Akron’s Lincoln Elementary School did not own a single swimsuit and were thus unable to learn swimming at the school’s pool,'’ Charlie writes.

‘’As a lifelong swimmer, I knew that I had to help. My initial plan was to solicit the support of major swimsuit manufacturers like Speedo and TYR, but my efforts proved fruitless. My next effort was to collect lightly used swimsuits from the local competitive swimming community, starting with my own high school team. I have since collected roughly 200 suits from area high school and club teams . . . Although I’ve made strides toward solving the Lincoln problem, the issue isn’t fully addressed yet. One unanticipated setback was that most of the swimsuits I collected were in adult sizes and the swimmers in need are elementary school children.'’

Interested in helping Charlie? Please take your gently used, conservatively cut, one-piece swimsuits to the Firestone High School office or e-mail him at DCPWagner@gmail.com

1,000 kids’ books

Major kudos to 12-year-old Morgan Schroeder, a seventh-grader at Akron’s Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts who has collected more than 1,000 children’s books since the spring for Akron Children’s Hospital’s ‘’Reach Out and Read'’ program.

‘’The books are collected and given to doctors’ offices for children to read and to take home with them after a visit,'’ said Morgan’s mother, Renee Schroeder.

‘’The books she collected are gently used. They are from neighbors, friends and relatives.'’

Karen Carbaugh, Reach Out and Read’s coordinator, said Morgan has delivered the most books of anyone.

Ride …

Source: International Herald Tribune ()

PARIS: South Africa and England, two rugby teams heading in very different directions, passed briefly in the night on Friday.

The Springboks signaled they might be genuine contenders for the 2007 World Cup with a 36-0 victory in which they did everything well. The English, the winners of the 2003 World Cup, sunk to new depths, doing almost everything badly and losing their best player, Jason Robinson, to what looked like a career-ending injury.

England's last defeat in a World Cup had come in the same stadium to the same foe a little under eight years ago. That day, Jannie de Beer kicked a record five drop goals as the Springboks won a quarterfinal encounter, 44-21. This time kicking drop goals was about the only thing the South Africans did not do well. Their forwards were strong, their backs, brilliantly directed by Fourie du Preez, the scrum half, deadly,

The game followed a depressing week for English rugby, one of many in the past few years. Its captain, Phil Vickery, was suspended and it lost its second fly half to injury. After some coaching poker from Brian Ashton, England began with Mike Catt at fly half with Andy Farrell where he was always has for England at inside center.

For the first five minutes, the two grizzled packs nuzzled up to each other. Things did not immediately go the way of the Springbok forwards. They lost a ball on their own lineout and were pushed slightly back at the first scrum.

South Africa quickly went to Plan B. They put the ball in the hands of a winger. It worked at once. JP Pietersen was already streaking up the touch line as he collected the ball. When he was tackled, he passed to du Preez, who had the try line at his mercy. The scrum half fell, but as the panicked English closed in, he coolly flopped the ball behind the knot of defenders to Juan Smith. The flanker had no defender and ran unopposed to the line.

Percy Montgomery converted. Four minutes later Francois Steyn booted a penalty …

Source: The Mercury ()

TASMANIA’S youth have voted to ban poker machines.

Source: Online-Casinos.com ()

MORE GAMBLING PREVALENCE STUDY LEAKS
 
Now The Observer seems to have pre-release information
 
It may only be due for publication later this (September) month, but the results already appear to have been widely leaked from the Gambling Prevalence research study among problem gamblers carried out by Birmingham University academics working with the National Centre for Social Research.
 
Commissioned by the UK Gambling Commission, the study is a follow up to a similar project carried out some eight years ago which found that problem gamblers made up between 0.6 and 0.8 percent of the adult population. According to several news sources, the new level is nearer 2 percent of the adult population.
 
Over the weekend several mainstream British newspapers have carried stories on the study, revealing some of the findings.
 
The Observer was one of the newspapers covering the gambling story extensively, with quotes from leading British operators, and reporting that the studies indicate an upswing in online gambling, with nearly a million 'regular online gamblers' in Britain, accounting for almost a third of the European total. On average, these individuals spend about GBP 1 000 a year on their habit, which means that gamblers now spend more than GBP 1 billion a year online.
 
The Times says that the study was timed to coincide with the advent of the new gambling dispensation, which took effect in the UK from September 1st, and that the results are due for publication later in September.
 
It comments that the study is expected to show a sharp increase in the number of problem gamblers in Britain from the current level of about 300 000.
 
“Bookmakers and casino operators fear that, despite the government’s protestations to the contrary, it will seize on any increase [in problem gambling] to clamp down on the industry or hit it with punitive tax rises, The Times reports quoting …