Regular readers will know by now that I used to have a gambling problem. The pokies were my poison. This was back in the mid to late 90s, and I remember that a number of the venues I used to frequent were, at one time or another, 24-hour pokie barns.

These days, outside of the casinos there are no 24-hour gambling venues. Sure, that’s a good thing but here in Victoria we have something almost as bad: the early openers.

(continue reading…)

When I’m not playing with my kids, or blogging about gambling shenanigans, I work in Melbourne’s CBD. My trip to work takes me to Southern Cross station, and past the construction site of the Mail Exchange Hotel on Bourke St.

This morning, I noticed that it wasn’t a construction site any more. The signs were lit, the doors were open and there was a bouncer standing out the front. Big guy too. The Mail Exchange Hotel was open for business… just after 8 in the morning. And what sort of business does a hotel partake in at 8 in the morning in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD?

(continue reading…)

Yesterday I wrote about the ALH’s decision to pull gambling-style kids games from all of their venues across the country; that includes almost 100 venues in Victoria alone. It made a nice change to be able to write something good about this lot, especially given the Woolworths connection and the bad publicity they’ve been getting in the press (and deservedly so).

But any lingering happy thoughts I might have had about this were shattered when I learned last night that the Pink Hill Hotel, a proposed development in Beaconsfield, is planning on building a soundproof room, essentially a glass cage, to serve as a kids play area… and that this cage would overlook the 60-machine gaming room.

Are these people insane?

(continue reading…)

It’s about time I made a start on what I like to call the Sneaky Bastards File. There are a number of means of gambling available in this country, including racing (horses and greyhounds), poker machines, casinos, sports betting and online gambling such as poker, pokies and casino games. Consequently, there are a number of laws and regulations covering different parts of the overall gambling industry. For the most part, these laws and regulations have been put in place to protect consumers and/or problem gamblers. Every now and then, however, someone finds a loophole or a way around these rules, and expolits it for their own benefit. And “exploit” is exactly the right word; making more money out of problem gamblers is nothing but exploitation.

Hence, the Sneaky Bastards File. And the first entrant into the file is the Malvern Vale hotel.

(continue reading…)