The Catholic church and a joint churches anti-gambling taskforce has distanced itself from a priest's decision to take part in a gaming industry campaign against the government's pokies reforms.

Youth Off The Streets founder Father Chris Riley appears on a flyer for Clubs Australia that will be distributed in 46 Labor and independent electorates in Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

Fr Riley, whose charity receives two per cent of its donations from registered clubs, believes education and counselling, not legislation, is the better way to help problem gamblers.

Under a deal independent MP Andrew Wilkie struck with federal Labor, poker machine players will be required to preset a limit on how much they plan to gamble on high-stakes poker machines.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8385829

FATHER CHRIS RILEY, the latest face in the clubs' campaign to block pokies reform, accepted $50,000 for a youth centre operated by his charity from Len Ainsworth, the founder of Australia's largest gaming machine company, Aristocrat Leisure.

Father Riley's charity, Youth Off The Streets, also appears to have a longstanding connection with the Ainsworths - Mr Ainsworth's daughter-in-law, Anna Ainsworth, has been on the board of the charity since 2002 and was its chairwoman from 2008 until early this year.

Like many charities, Youth Off The Streets also receives funding made available by clubs - $122,325 in 2011.

A parliamentary committee on interactive gambling has recommended a total ban on the promotion of live odds during the broadcast of sporting games.

The committee has also urged the Government to ban any mention of gambling when children are likely to be watching television as well as outlawing sports uniforms with betting company logos.

Committee chair Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie says the growth in gambling-related advertising is leading to more problem gambling.

"It's estimated that about $800 million is lost by Australians each year on sports betting in Australia," he said.

"It's not your typical poker machine player or racetrack goer. It tends to be younger people, and in particular younger men."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-08/committee-calls-for-ban-on-live-odds-broadcast/3720478?WT.svl=news0

When Uncle Rupe was a very young lad, his grandfather R. Green used to take him to the race track, without his parents knowing about it, to bet on horses... The rest is history... Rupe gambles other people's money as well as his own, all in the process of acquiring as much as possible of media assets in the world... He knows that "who controls information — controls the world"... More people read or see Rupe's info on his outlets than read the bible in a single week...

But gambling on footy teams in the middle of biffo is a bit sicko.

A joint parliamentary inquiry has heard counselling for problem gamblers does not work and is a waste of money.

The hearing is trying to work out the best ways to help problem gamblers.

The Australian Council of Churches says a public advertising campaign should tell people the machines are a danger and should not be played on a regular basis.

In January, the Prime Minister abandoned her commitment to independent Andrew Wilkie to introduce mandatory pre-commitment technology on poker machines, a measure recommended by the Productivity Commission to tackle problem gambling.

A month later, a joint parliamentary committee was set up to look at what measures work in helping problem gamblers quit.

This morning, two ex-pokie addicts gave the hearing a glimpse into their past.

Julia Karpathakis told independent senator Nick Xenophon her addiction cost her her house.

"I was never asked, 'do I have a problem?'," she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-14/counselling-for-gamblers-a-27waste-of-money27/4010122

see toon at top...

American TV host Jay Leno once quipped that politics is show business for ugly people.

But in the case of the Australian Greens and Senator Nick Xenophon, it's less show business and more Theatre of the Absurd.

Andrew Wilkie has agreed to support the Gillard Government's gambling reform legislation. Legislation that will increase funding for counselling services, expand gambling help online, ban the promotion of live odds during sports coverage, crack down on online companies offering inducements or credit betting and require voluntary pre-commitment on new poker machines from 2013.

These are wide ranging gambling reforms and with Mr Wilkie's vote the Gillard Government no doubt assumed that they could get on with putting them into action. However, in yet another twist the Greens and Senator Xenophon have announced that they won't support it in the Upper House.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4049870.html?WT.svl=theDrum

Anthony Ball is the CEO of ClubsNSW and Executive Director of Clubs Australia, the national umbrella association for clubs. 

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Of course...

But I am sure the Gillard government knows what it's doing within the limits of parliament... There is much anti-Julia stuff in the "O"-press (as in oppressing the masses into believing that reform of gambling is bad or impossible, because gambling is fun and a fundamental human right — especially for losers). The new legislation is not ideal but it's a step in the right direction. 

The theatre of the absurd is gambling itself....

Imagine that you have one chance of doubling your money and nineteen chances of loosing the lot in most crap games...

... On pokies, the odds are better: you have three chances out of four to loose all your money within five minutes and one chance in a million to win the jackpot in a marathon six days, two hours and twelve minutes... In short, no matter what, you're screwed. The machine or the gambling guzzlers "eventually" wins. That's the way the gaming industry is designed. You loose no-matter-what, it wins... 

Sure you can loose with a smile on your face because for the last few hours, you became addicted to the colours and the spinning lemons, and you have been entertained with the hope of winning something — and you might have but you eventually lost the lot within a smidgin of winning the loot, but you did not...

I have met people who sunk say one hundred dollars in the machines and came out of the gambling den with twenty bux spewed out by the one-armed bandit... They think they've beaten the system! They've won something! They discount their loss of eighty dollars as a win — especially on that 134th lever pull game that gave them forty bux for twenty cents (yippee) of which they lost another twenty dollars after that...

That's what gambling is about, the lure of winning when the reality of loosing is disguised by targeted lighting, buzzed up ambience, easy booze, tingling noises of coins falling in metal trays and chrome trimmings...

Do you think gambling dens would exist if their punters were winning more often than them?... And the dens win big...

Without limits, gambling becomes ugly — especially for those who cannot afford loosing their money... And, often, the more one looses money the more one becomes addicted as "since one has lost so much, a win is just around the corner" but it never is...

Anthony Ball writes luminous shit.

Channel Nine management scripted comments for rugby league commentators to read out live on air which called the federal government's pokies strategy a 'stupid policy', the communications regulator has found.

The scripted comments, read by Ray Warren and Phil Gould also praised clubs which own poker machines and encouraged viewers to sign a petition against a policy introducing pre-commitment for gamblers.

But this did not breach any licence conditions despite the political nature of the comments because they were only broadcast at the request of the station itself and because Nine did not receive money, the Australian Communications and Media Authority found.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/nine-bosses-scripted-nrl-pokie-comments-20120604-1zr7n.html#ixzz1wnJBDvtxCMBaRG

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/salvos-pokie-chaplains-plan-branded-a-whitewash-20120805-23nh6.html#ixzz22fOF5pIH

In other words, ClubNSW says: "we damage them, we send them for repair and then they come back ready to do it all again... It's a win-win situation..."

See toon at top...