Poker Machines

The wowsers are convinced that the convention centre-for-pokies deal will increase the number of pokies by 230, and that these things are springing up everywhere, sucking in innocent bystanders and hoovering out their wallets. The reality is very different – the Dept of Internal Affairs has operated a sinking lid policy for over 10 years, and in fact has reduced the number of pokies over the whole country.

In Auckland alone, the biggest market by far, the number of pokies has reduced by 40% in 9 years. Here are the figures:   Read more »

ᔥ NZ Herald

David Fisher had an article in Saturday’s paper about a pokie fraudster. I have now had several tips on the tipline providing further information about this bloke:

This particular part is bullshit:

“Gibbons has lived a life committed to his community. There have been cricket and horses – the rhythm of life in Franklin, south of Auckland.”

And this sentence is plain effing laughable:

“There was barely a blemish in life until he started trying to bring in money for Counties Manukau Bowls.”

What Gibbons didn’t tell Fisher is that he was kicked out of the Franklin Trotting Club, The Pukekohe Cosmopolitan Club and the Pukekohe IHC.

My Grandmother’s bowling club was one of the clubs he tried to get to invest in his scheme and it was from there that I found out about the other Pukekohe organisations he got the boot from.

While there were others who got off scot-free, he is far from the poor innocent old coot he is making himself out to be.

Did David Fisher contact any of those clubs/organisations to verify Gibbon’s story?

Or was this a case of rushing a bad story about the evils of pokie machines out there in order to continue the Herald’s lop-sided anti-gambling campaign.

ᔥ NZ Herald

In an admirable move Te Ururoa Flavell is trying to stop stupid people wasting their money on pokies. This effort is doomed to fail because stupid people are too stupid to realise gambling is a tax on stupidity and will find another way of pissing away their hard earned cash, or more likely the tax payers harder earned benefit money.

So in a failing move Te Ururoa has tried to change the basis that pokies tax on stupidity is reallocated to the community, namely by taking money away from gaming trusts and giving it to local councils to distribute.

Mr Flavell’s private member’s bill would strip power from the gaming trusts which dominate the $700 million pokie industry in pubs and clubs.

It would put power to distribute the $300 million available to community groups in the hands of local authorities, wiping out the current funding bodies.

What this actually means is a lot less money for sports clubs and a lot more money for the arts. Everyone knows councils are full of liberal elite wankers who want us all to pay for their bourgeoisie hobbies, which is why we have highly expensive opera houses and theatres all over the country all making a loss for their council owners because the hoi polloi are not interested in arts.

This money could also be syphoned off onto Mayoral Task Forces to look into things “Green Business”, “Nikki Kaye’s Gay Mardi Gras” or “Public Transport for other people to use” rather than providing jerseys on the kids rugby and netball teams in your community.

The rest of the Flavell bill might be ok, but anything giving money to councils is doomed to have negative outcomes for the community. If you belong to a sports club or a community group that will lose money to council funded pet projects you should make a submission to the bill.

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

Labour has again been caught out in a blatant double standard.

The MPs Pecuniary Interests Register tabled in Parliament yesterday, shows Labour MPs were the recipients of significant hospitality from Sky City – despite their rabid opposition to a new convention centre and over-the-top claims about problem gambling.

Labour MPs accepted more free tickets to RWC games from Sky City than any other Party.

Even David Shearer accepted some tickets, which would make these comments about ‘pokie machines’ blatantly hypocritical.

Labour leader David Shearer received 12 free tickets to various games – two for a pool game came from Sky City. He was a guest of Sky TV at the final and Telecom at the opening ceremony.

This especially interesting because David Shearer subsequently enjoyed a nice fireside dinner at the home of Sky TV lobbyist with the CEO as well. I broke that story and at the time Shearer weaseled out of it, perhaps now in light of his accepting largesse from Sky TV we should re-visit that dinner.

Shearer’s new position appears to be that pokie machines and Sky City are very bad – although me and my mates are happy to accept the freebies they pay for. He also has the position that although he enjoys corporate hospitality and home dinners and fine wine with the corporate lobbyist and CEO that they never speak of business.

Pokie Numbers from the DIA website.

From this graph you can see that Pokie numbers peaked at 25,221 in June 2003. When the government changed in November 2008 they were down to 20,025 (Dec 08) and bottomed out at 18,001 in Dec 2011.

Is 500 more going to make that much difference?

Basically gambling is a tax on stupidity, and in this case the rest of the population gets to benefit from jobs, from a Convention Centre and a Theatre all paid for by the tax on stupid people.