CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
With public services, marches and other commemorative gatherings made impossible by coronavirus, Australians are being encouraged to commemorate ANZAC Day from home this year.
Australians can gather in their driveways, on their balconies or in their windows at 6am to listen to a streamed Dawn Service from the Australian War Memorial and hold up a candle or light.
However, there has been a lot of concerns voiced about whether Australians were going to have to miss out on one crucial element of the day: The unbridled alcohol-fuelled gambling that takes place in the two up circles in pubs and RSLs around the country.
Thankfully, this issue has been quickly resolved with the help of one of the world’s most fast-moving video game creators.
Red Dead Two-Up is free-to-download for all Australians who own a PC or Playstation, and has been created by RockStar games in partnership with the RSLs.
Two-up is a glorious traditional Australian gambling game involving a designated “spinner” throwing two coins or pennies into the air. Players bet on whether the coins will fall with both heads (obverse) up, both tails (reverse) up, or with one coin a head and one a tail. It is traditionally played on Anzac Day in pubs and clubs throughout Australia, in part to mark a shared experience with Diggers.
This year, through the new E-Two Up game, Australians can place up to $10,000 bets on the toss with other citizens online.
Virtual spinners and ringmasters will provide completely randomised tosses and Australians can choose a CGI map of their favourite pubs to play it in.
Prime Minister Morrison has commended the initiative and says that any of the older diggers who want to play can be partnered with a tech-savy online millennial buddy to help explain how to download the program to their computer.
MORE TO COME.
