WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT
Betoota Heights Railway Hotel owner Barry Simpson has today lashed out at a proposal to implement Cashless Gambling Cards in pubs, clubs and casinos.
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Speaking at length on a quiet Monday morning where only the distant sounds of a feature occasionaly going off across his venue, Barry says a cashless gambling card would be a devsatating blow to his venue.
“It’s nanny state behaviour mate,” said the fired up publican.
The idea has been floated in the Greater Betoota Area today, after the damning NSW report into the Crown Casino reccomended that cashless, registered gambling cards with pre-comittment limits be introduced to combat problem gambling and criminal behaviour like money laundering.
However, Barry, the publican at a venue that sells eight dollar schooners of VB (free if you have lost over 500 on the pokies in the previous 7 days) says it would just be another example of an interfering government overstepping the mark.
“If the government can track how much people are losing, and help in preventing problem gamblers burning everything through the pokies, how are community sports going to recieve minor donations from clubs like mine?,” he said.
“Who will stimulate the frozen party pies and pizza industry if problem gamblers can afford to feed kids fruit and vegtables?”
“The flow on effects are devastating,” said the owner of a pub who hasn’t done any work on the place since the turn of the millennium, offers no food or drink specials (other than for problem gamblers) and makes the bare minimum effort to try and create an appealing venue.
“My business relies on being able to prey on people’s addictions, and if they government takes that away from me now, it’s too late for me to adapt,” he said.
More to come.
