Why I risked prison to add a 'Losing Sound' to poker machines
And if you want the issue to be debated in parliament you can sign a petition linked in the article.
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/03/why-i-risked-prison-to-add-a-losing-sound-to-poker-machines/Open linkView original on aussie.zone
11 replies
Fuck pokies, they've destroyed what pubs once were.
cancer factories ? ban one shitty thing but keep the other ?
https://www.cancer.org.au/cancer-information/causes-and-prevention/diet-and-exercise/limit-alcohol
That sounds like a brilliant idea, simple, elegant, cheap to implement and effective.
Thank you for sharing this link, the gambling industry will desperately try to kill the initiative, because they know it will be a financial disaster.
But that just means that it absolutely needs to be implemented.
If implemented, I see two future scenarios, both less bad than what we have now:
Both of these options reduce the incentive to gamble.
Why did they start a change.org petition, it specifically states on the government website those aren't accepted
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions/House_of_Representatives_Petitions/Frequently_asked_questions
Obviously it'll only actually get attention through popular demand either way, but still
This is just a guess. Perhaps they chose change.org because they are likely to get more signatories than on a govt petition site.
More likely that change.org provides information about who signed (including emails unless opted out) to the person running the petition. Information gathering from informal petitions is more likely to undermine trust and make people less likely to sign, but then you can't build a database of people sympathetic to some cause and spam them afterwards.
The "20,000 petition signatures" feels like straight up manipulation - there's no magic number to force a debate at parliament, and as [email protected] points out, an official petition would be needed for it to be tabled. If an official petition with a lot of signatures is tabled, that is a signal to politicians that the public care about it, and can overcome lobbying in the other direction and apathy, so it increases the chance a bill is put up for debate.
This comes from an ad agency; they don't list any gambling companies as clients, but I'm sure they'd find information like a list of people who signed useful for something.
That said, it's still a good idea to regulate in a losing sound if there is no political will to do anything more drastic. Better yet would be to require linking play to a one-per-person card, and having hourly, daily, monthly and annual loss limits per card, after which the owner cannot allow any more losses for that card holder.
This may not be the case to petitions presented to the Senate but I could be wrong.
A great short read, and nice video!
Sharing some other relevant articles on pokies:
The Guardian (Australia)- Hooked: how pokies are designed to be addictive (also explores similar reward-manipulation techniques with interactive demos (e.g. loses disguised as wins), in fact it's one of the cool examples on https://explorabl.es/all/ )
How Much Money Can We Launder In A Day? - a satirical stunt featuring whistleblower Troy Stolz - former head of ClubsNSW's anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism unit and current councilor - "He leaked an internal report that stated that 95% of registered clubs in New South Wales were non-compliant with anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism laws.".
Thank you for that. Please share the petition. Let's get this debated in parliament.
Not sure which sound I prefer:
or maybe something like
Game over, man
In case anyone is interested or has questions about petitions.
Here's page for our govt petition procedures: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions
Here's Change.org: https://www.change.org/petition-guides/create-a-petition