Something curious is happening in the City of Darebin.

A local paper, the Northcote Leader, ran a couple of stories recently (here and here) about Darebin Council’s new tough gaming policy, and the recent decision (by the council) to issue a permit for 30 new poker machines to the Stolberg Beer Cafe hotel.

It seems strange that the council would talk up their tough stance on pokies on the one hand, while approving new machines on the other. Apparently that’s because the old policy allowed the permit to be granted because there were only two objections. That’s a far cry from the people-power actions taken recently in Romsey, Jan Juc and Port Fairy!

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There was a lot of coverage in the media a week or so back about kids games in gambling venues. The style of the games, and their proximity to gaming rooms and poker machines, gave rise to the very real concern that kids who played these games would be “groomed” for the pokies; desensitised to the concept of risking small prizes to win big ones, and accepting of the pokies as a reasonable way to pass the time. That’s not to mention the parents who would leave their kids to play these machines while they spent hours on the pokies.

Now, we’re not talking Space Invaders, PacMan or Galaga here… these were technically skill games, but the prizes on offer included high-value items such as televisions and iPods. Of course, no one just won the big prizes. You had to win small prizes first, and then risk them to go for the big ones. And these machines could be programmed by the operators to only pay out a small percentage of the time… just like poker machines.

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