Trial finds cashless gaming makes little difference to gambling behaviour on pokies

Taxing the shit out of it results in poorer outcomes for gamblers. The average minimum return rate is already defined legally, for pokies it's something like they must return ~90% per hour. Adding more tax on top would result in a lower return rate

Yeah nah, the sin tax on smoking already heavily penalises less privileged people and is very ends-justify-means. Plus gambling is much older than nicotine in terms of habits humans continue to do.

Smoking stuff is a pissweak compromise position trying to undo harm by massive corporations with powerful vested interests. Without mass market cigarettes and advertising no way so many people do it for the mild stimulant hit. Restricting gambling is more like trying to stop stimulant drug use in general vs smoking specifically.

Besides, while I don't gamble I can acknowledge that a few bets or a game of cards can be pretty fun. If we can manage the framework it happens in, such that the goal is a good balance between fun and harm vs the capitalist framework of maximum wealth extraction then I don't see the harm. It's not like a game of poker is a worse decision than a bottle of wine or sitting in watching tv vs going for a run or something.

Gambling in general, not just pokies.

So it's a bit cooked but basically humans do stuff that's harmful, governments supplying it at least removes profit incentives.

You can't ban gambling out of existence but a government body can be set up in such a way that odds are fairer, only less addicting games are offered (e.g. no pokies because flashing lights and sounds are satanic), the rooms have natural light and clocks etc. Any money made goes into gambling assistance programs or community improvement or whatever.

Would people still get hurt? yes. Would there be corruption? yes. But there's no way it can be worse than private operations which still have all the same problems with less transparency and being harder to regulate, plus the profit incentive.

Think of it like injecting rooms, trust me it's way safer and less glamorous to shoot up /get supplies at one of those than a house party.

The idea is that if the government gets all the profit from gambling then that money can go into social services to support the people who bankrupt themselves from gambling.

idk, maybe I’m an old guy barking at the moon, but something feels really off. I think I’m going to pull out $500 in cash, and use that to pay for everything and see if it changes my perspective.

I don't think you're old fashioned at all. Young people concerned about their finances are still using the "envelope" trick even today because it works. I think the problem in this pokies example is the existence of a serious addictive behaviour so rational thought is not being utilised in the same way it would be it you or I were to budget with cash normally.

Nah, get rid of cash for the pokies. It alone won't help with harm reduction but the pokies are one of the most common ways to launder money in this country. People use the resources taxes buy and should be paying their fair share.

We also need cashless gaming cards with default and settable hard limits with restrictions on when you can change it to help combat the addictions.