A World at War with Itself
The podcast will be for a year, where Julie Finch-Scally, writer and broadcaster can interview people about life and the current situation of the world. She will discuss how so many things have changed over the past 80 years since her birth, and what the world needs to change to improve and save the planet from ourselves.
A World at War with Itself
Gambling
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Gambling can be fun, but also an horrific addiction. How can you help a friend that can't stop gambling? There are people who can assist. They've been through it too.
Hello again, Julie Finch Scalley with you for another episode of A World of War with Itself. This week is the final discussion of subjects that people don't like to talk about. And today it is all about gambling. I have the pleasure in welcoming to the studio Marcus Fisher, who works with the Canberra region of Relationship Australia. Welcome, Marcus. Great to have you here.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Julie, and uh really pleased to be here this morning.
SPEAKER_00One hears of the word gambling relating to horse racing and sports matches, but what precisely is gambling? What is someone doing when they gamble?
SPEAKER_01Okay, gambling is quite a broad thing, and a lot of people just relate to gambling as being money only. And gambling harm, or if we talk about gambling, is actually so much more than money. So if we look at Australians, we could gamble on, say for instance, two flies going up the wall, we could gamble on a number of different things. But people always put it in the terms of money. But really, if you boil it down, gambling is about risk, taking a risk in order to gain a reward. What sort of reward? Well, say for instance, I've had someone asked, we run groups at the AMC Correctional Centre, and one of my colleagues said to me, he said, Well, they can't gamble out there. There is no poker machines, there's nothing. And I said, they may gamble, that one person can actually lift more weights than another, that somebody can do something better than another, and what they will do is that they'll say, Well, okay, you ran faster than me, or you uh lifted more weights, and whoever wins has to polish my shoes for a week, or may do something, or you have to give me half of your meal, or clean up my bunk for a week. So it's a very broad thing we look at as far as gambling is concerned.
SPEAKER_00What is the effect on people themselves when they actually gamble? Win or lose?
SPEAKER_01Most people look at it through the lens of losing. They think that oh, gambling you can lose. Even though it's advertised everyone's a winner. I asked people a very open question. I asked them, what do you think is one of the worst things that happened to me on my journey that spanned 35 years? And one of the worst things that happened to me when I was 20, and I'm 65 now, was that I won. And that impact of winning brought out an addiction, and I had other addictions going on, such as alcohol and drugs, but it was such an easy thing because I thought it could happen again and again, and the feeling was the same, the endorphins of everything going.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I I can understand that. You see people getting animated on TV, especially on commercials, but with people themselves, is it only because they stand to win or lose a lot of money, and you sort of indicated that might be the case, or is it something else that drives them to become that emotional about watching a race on TV or something?
SPEAKER_01Look, I think that thinking about it, number one, if you see ads, people are paid to be animated. So it's meant to be a jolly, fun activity. And you don't see people on those ads who have, say, for instance, lost all of the money that was supposed to be for their kids' holiday or their electricity bill or for the shopping or for the rent. They don't show you pictures of that. I know in my own experience, and mine is a lived experience, is that yes, I was animated when I won, but also if I was losing, I was also animated and I was getting angry at something like a machine that doesn't listen to my whether I'm angry, uh, and I was pressing the buttons harder or banging the the front of the machine. People get animated in all sorts of ways. I know what it feels like for me, and I've seen other people do it.
SPEAKER_00Gambling run in the family, or if you witness it as a child, are you more likely to take it up?
SPEAKER_01There is a propensity, and it's like with alcoholism and drug addiction. I know in my family, on one side of my family, there is some alcohol addiction, and there's been some alcohol harm, and I probably have a propensity for that. Now, with gambling, my uncle taught me how to play blackjack and poker when I was very young, and we played for match dicks and then we played for one and two cent pieces. But again, it was all about winning who had more matchsticks, who had more money. So did he think he was training a gambler? No. Did he gamble himself? Yes, he went and played poker machines, but I have also spoken to clients who say, for instance, their parents have owned a pub and they've had a TAB, and I what they've seen is that they've gone the other way. They said, I hate gambling because I've seen it. It really depends. Some people can go, I can see people winning, I can see people losing. It depends on the person. If I live in a family where my parents, and I think a lot of people forget this, that my parents or see my brother or a sibling lose everything and it's impacted the family, it's going to impact on me and how I see that and what lens I actually wear to see gambling. If they've been successful, and I've spoken to clients as well whose families and parents, it's an acceptable part of life that they all get together on a Melbourne Cup day, and they realise as a young person that they have gambling issues and feel gambling harm, yet they feel the stigma and shame of saying something because it's an accepted part of the family. Now, we might say, Oh, it's all harmless, but is it harmless? I think it's around the education about what's on the product. And when we talk about young people, we also talk about gaming. Now, gaming is like, say, for instance, uh Twitch and Fortnite and Roadblocks. Now, those particular types of gaming platforms have what's called loot boxes and skins. And if you're a parent or any parents that are listening to this, go and check your Apple ID account and see how many, say, for instance, one dollar, two dollars, fifty cent withdrawals have been made. Because what a young person is doing is actually wagering something like a dollar seems harmless. In order to get three boxes, if they pick one of those boxes, that gives them maybe an advantage in that game. That is pure gambling. We run groups for young people. I've had 14-year-old girls whose ambitions are to go and have, and I I don't like the terminology, but it's what they say is to have a slap on the pokies. And they're 14, 12. Young people are being brought up with gambling through electronic devices and gaming.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so when does gambling become harmful?
SPEAKER_01When does it become harmful? It's a hard question to answer. Realistically, it could become harmful when you can't pay your bills. When does it become harmful? I don't know. It's a really difficult question to answer. If I'd lost in a session maybe $100 or $50, and I have the urge to go back and play again and play again, because as I mentioned earlier, EGMs or electronic, they call them gaming machines in clubs, and we don't demonize gambling, is that those machines and like gaming is addiction by design. They make these products addictive so you go back again. So when do you know it's harmful after you go, I've got no money left, so what I'll do instead of betting $50 that I think, you know what? I won't pay the electricity bill next week, so what I'll do is I'll take the electricity money and I'll put it in there in case I win.
SPEAKER_00I've often thought they sometimes gamble to get the money back that they've lost.
SPEAKER_01That is the biggest trap for people. It's chasing your losses. Because people will chase their losses, and realistically, what they're doing, this is where the shame comes in. Because what they are literally doing is digging a hole deeper and deeper. And the way I look at it is that I may have dug the hole really deep, but I'll have a win. So I stick my head up above the hole and I think, okay, I really haven't lost any. So I'll the next spin might be then I go back down the hole again. But yet what I'll do is I'll gamble again because I'll chase. And when I walk out, if I haven't lost and I think, well, I haven't really I've come out even, really, I still may have lost money. Mentally, it's a really up and down sort of thing, and it in impacts on your mental health.
SPEAKER_00And if I had a friend, how would I know if they have a gambling addiction?
SPEAKER_01Look, it depends. I know uh we talk to a lot of uh young sports people, we talk to girls, is say for instance if uh and I'll just use a scenario, is that if you were working with your young guys and where the most impact is for gambling harm is young males between 18 and 35. If you happen to be a tradee, and we all know I think tradies make pretty good money, and two or three days after payday, that person's actually going to borrow money or can't go out and isolate and says, or can I borrow some money because I need some money for petrol? Or he said, Why? Why is that person doing that? If that person is making X amount of money, what are the signs of harm? For me, I'd hidden those signs of harm, and unlike drug or alcohol addiction, gambling harm, what I would say is faceless. Because I could walk out of a club and have bet my inheritance, and I could walk straight out those doors and and walk past you in a mall and you would not know at all. So, how do you as a person help someone unless there are signs of harm that you can actually see?
SPEAKER_00What what effect does it have on the other people around them?
SPEAKER_01It has a major impact because I know with my family they were powerless. They didn't know what to do. They said, What can we do? And for me, when I'm in addiction, I don't want any help. I don't want help from you. We run uh family and friends groups to support people that are impacted uh by gambling harm. And that might be a brother or sister or a teammate, a colleague, a mother or father. And it's like an Al-Anon. AA they have al-Anon. So you have people who drink go to AA, people who have been impacted by someone in their family that drinks goes to Al-Anon. So it's the same sort of thing in the ACT. There are 58,000 Canberons impacted by gambling harm, and that's just not the ones that are actually pressing the buttons or at the racetrack.
SPEAKER_00Heavens above. And do they have a steal to to help them pay for gambling harm?
SPEAKER_01Um Yes, I look, I have before, and and I think it's like any addiction. If you can't get the money and you're addicted to something, what do you do? It drives you. It drives you because you think all I need is to have a win to be able to pay back these debts. And even then, when you get the money, you probably don't even think about paying the debts because you want to win more money. So it's like any addiction and what it drives it and how far you're willing to go. Because I know I would crawl over broken glass to get money to gamble and to drink and do what I need to do in my addiction. Just to add, Julie, is that I went to a residential rehab here for two and a half years and I haven't now gambled, uh had a drink or any drugs or cigarettes now for thirteen and a half years. So there is a path out of this.
SPEAKER_00I was just going to ask to say, once you've been bitten by the gambling bug, is it easy to stop?
SPEAKER_01Well, to use the word easy, no, it's not easy. Right. Because if it was easy, um Everybody would do it. I would just have a little piece of paper and give somebody and say, This is what you need to do. Yes, it's not easy path out. You firstly have to admit, and I use the word problem in the context, is that you need to admit that you have a problem in order to do something about it. Then it's a journey, basically a journey through your addiction and recovery. It doesn't end, you don't there's no endpoints. Not like a train ticket, you get there and everything's done and you get a clean bill of health. I have a program in myself what I do. I go to clubs, I know their there's poker machines there, I know what harm they'll cause me if I actually go and play them again. I know what would happen. We speak to a number of people who are impacted by harm. We talk to them about the shame and guilt that they may be feeling and what the path is and that there is hope and a path out of this. But there is also if you wish to sit in a denial about your problem or harms, it's very difficult to move forward. But there is a path out.
SPEAKER_00When gamblers lose, how do they explain what's happened? Do they make excuses or lie, right.
SPEAKER_01And pretty straight up. Obvious, yeah. Um because when I talk to people about gambling when I was gambling, I would only tell people about how much I won. I never told people about how much I lost. Because if I said to you, Julie, that I went out last night and I won a thousand dollars, you said, Oh, that's exciting. But if I told you that I had actually spent five thousand dollars to win that one thousand dollars, you'd be going, Are you crazy? So we tend not to tell people how much we gamble in order to win. And if I had actually written that all down on a spreadsheet at some stage in my journey and said, This is what I'm winning, this is what I'm losing, I probably wouldn't have gone as far as I had.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01You never did that. No. Because as a gambler, I know in the back of my mind subconsciously that I am losing, but I only play for the wind. It's that high that I want all the time. And when I talked about poker machines being addiction by design, is that I could put a dollar in, and when I lose and I'm getting less back for that dollar, it still makes a noise and a sound and a colour that still thinks that I've actually won something, but I'm actually losing maybe 80 cents on a push.
SPEAKER_00Frightening, really, if you think about it. What's your procedures when somebody comes to you and says, Yes, I have a problem, but can you help me? What do you say to these people?
SPEAKER_01Look, I think the biggest step for people is to take that step forward, and that's the hardest step. I know in my own addictions, the biggest step is taking the first step. We were talking about before is that there is shame and guilt around gambling harm because it's perceived as being such a normal part of Australian society. What we do is that we never have the philosophy of trying to fix people because I know as a lived experienced people uh person, I don't want someone to fix me. I need someone to support, listen, and understand what my journey has been so far. So we sit down and we support people. How can we support you? Well, every person has a different journey, everybody has a different story. So we listen, we see where we can help. We have support groups that people can come to, we have peer support workers, we have three counsellors as well, then we have a drop-in group that people can come to where gamblers can talk and get support, and then we have the family and friends group. So it's about education about why these harms are, that they're not bad people, that how did they get into it? So we try to support them the best way we can.
SPEAKER_00You said you have an addiction to drugs and alcohol.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Is that the same with most gamblers, or I mean is that part of across the board?
SPEAKER_01Look, that's a broad brush. There is a percentage of gamblers that may not drink or take drugs, but I can tell you for me, when I drink and take drugs, I don't make good decisions. And that includes making decisions about how much money I need to spend on a poker machine. I know for me I had a propensity and had an addictive type of personality.
SPEAKER_00We've established that gamblers lose control, but can they control their gambling to such an extent that they can still gamble but not lose everything?
SPEAKER_01It's really an individual thing. I remember going out to the Andrew McConaughey Centre and we run a group out there, and I had some of the detainees out there say to me, said, You're gonna make me stop gambling. And I said, I'm not gonna make you stop doing anything, because this is about choice. And that's what we say to people, this is about choice. It's akin to teaching children when they put the hand on the hot plate. If they want to keep putting the hand on the hot plate, we say, Well, the hot plate is actually hot, it will burn you. After a while, they might learn. And it's like we educate people around the products. I talk to people about the harms that have happened to me, our other peer worker does as well. So we educate and then let people make their choices. And it's like alcohol, it's the same thing. Some people think that they can drink again, but yet they come back and go, I can't, or this has happened again and again. And I say to people about gambling, if you get back in the ring with it again, I guarantee you it will punish you again. And some of them take a lot longer to learn. Some of them may be able to do what we would call harm minimization. If you can do it, fantastic, because I can't.
SPEAKER_00This is my final question. Being a gambler can be devastating for oneself and for one's family, especially when people have nothing left. Yet there is not the stigma, as far as I can see, around being a gambler as much as there is by being known as an alcoholic or a drug addict. Why?
SPEAKER_01I disagree with that. And being a gambler who had been through the journey for 35 years is that I had people say to me, Why don't you just stop? They do the same with alcohol, why don't you just stop? And unless you live in addiction, you have no idea how this impacts you. There is a lot of stigma because people will say, Oh, it's just the Melbourne Cup, it's only a dollar, it's only five dollars, but my head doesn't go like that. My head sort of thinks, well, maybe I can win 500, maybe I can win five thousand. It's become such a normal part of life. And Australia's are the worst gamblers in the world. We have the highest per capita gambling harm in the world. So when someone says, I have an issue with gambling, I can't stop. People look at you, what's wrong with you? Toughen up. And gambling harm is like that. That's why people do not want to come forward and say, I need help, and put a banner up and say, look, here I am, and if 58,000 people in the ACT are being impacted, that's one in six. Why aren't people coming forward? Because of the shame and the guilt and the embarrassment. That's what we are finding. Even when we talk to them, it's hard for them to take that step.
SPEAKER_00And then 58,000 people out of 400,000 is quite a lot.
SPEAKER_01It's a lot of people. And that's if you look at it, the GIO stadium takes 25,000 people. So it's two and a bit GIO stadiums, and that's a lot of people. There is shame and guilt, and that's why people don't come forward. It's the major thing, and I've been in this position now and working for relationships Australia, Camberan regions, for five years, and we're still trying to break the surface. That's why we use the word harm rather than problem. Because people like myself don't want to feel I'm a problem or a burden to society.
SPEAKER_00That's a good way of looking at it, and I would like to think that a way of changing the world. Look, this has been so informative. I've got a much better understanding of what it happens to people when they gamble. My thanks, Marcus, for coming in and speaking with me today. I have been speaking with Marcus Fisher, who works for the Canberra region of Relationship Australia. And that brings us to the end of this last episode of taboo subjects. But I will be back next week with a completely different category, so do join me then. This is Julie Finch Scaly of a World at War With Itself, signing off until next Wednesday.