Hard News: Dopamine psychosis and other great nights out
119 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 Newer→ Last
-
This is a form of making money (for the operators) that is essentially based on psychological deception. If these deceptions weren't built in to the way the machines operate, there would be little or no profit in them.
You mean the buzz of risk taking, the sparkle of the lights, the agony of the miss and perhaps even the thrill of winning. What you term psychological deceptions, are what a lot of people do call fun. So no kidding, take the fun out and it will be less profitable.
Best solution I reckon would be to make them more fun and less harmful. Mandate 90% of the take must be returned to the punters for any machine. Limit cost per spin to $1.00 maximum and no more than 3 spins a minute. And allow them to be everywhere they want to be.
-
i guess that is part of the problem - most communities didn't get to decide. how about we make every outlet go through a full resource consent process to make sure that every community does have a say in this.
Very good idea. Works with booze. And it's better than booze cause you can't take the pokies home with you. Or at least the demographic we're trying to make decisions on behalf of probably doesn't.
-
They say 3% of gamblers have a problem.
And in the gaming machine industry, they provide 20% of the revenue. Car manufacturers don't need people to die; pot dealers don't need people to be addicted. Pokie operators kinda do.
Why exactly are the other 97% not allowed their fun because of that? Was it a different number before the pokies?
Totally. The number of people who needed counselling for gambling addictions rose from 923 in 1997 to 4010 in 2004. Pretty much in line with the spike in pokie penetration, oddly enough.
Hell no. They're lame. But I wouldn't stop people doing it, so long as the communities concerned were OK with it.
I'm not quite sure why you're so against regulation at one level, but happy to let communities decide, but that would be fine with me too.
Although the half-dozen major pokie societies have major advantages in maintaining the status quo: for a start, $7-8 billion in annual turnover to campaign with. It's also problematic that most gaming machine licences are granted in perpetuity.
Anyway, the Gambling Act prohibits as well as permits different forms of gambling. I think there's a good case for saying that it's a damn shame pokies weren't left on the former list.
-
You mean the buzz of risk taking, the sparkle of the lights, the agony of the miss and perhaps even the thrill of winning.
Sounds soo much like Frogger.
The worst game from my childhood was Gauntlet. I marveled at the cleverness of the idea that you could continue your game as long as you had coins for. Sheer brilliance in the evil way it exploited all my hard won earnings week after week. At least the old game of 3 lives meant you eventually lost and decided to call it quits. With Gauntlet you only lost when you ran out of money.
That said, I had hundreds of hours of fun with my mates playing it.
-
Car manufacturers don't need people to die; pot dealers don't need people to be addicted.
No, but it helps. The car manufacturers who have done the best are of course the very ones which have had the most people die in them, since they are the cars which most people have. And a successful pot dealer loves his addicts, who are a walking $ sign.
Totally. The number of people who needed counselling for gambling addictions rose from 923 in 1997 to 4010 in 2004.
How many people were gambling?
I'm not quite sure why you're so against regulation at one level, but happy to let communities decide, but that would be fine with me too.
The bigger the level, the less I like it.
-
But, let's put it another another way. Say there is no booze in New Zealand -- would you actively bring it in to enhance this public enjoyment you speak of?
Knowing, as you would with hindsight, that it contributes to 40 or 50 road deaths and innumerable accidents every year. That the small but measurable health benefits are more than outweighed by the damage done by binge drinking and chronic overdrinking. Add to that to violence that it exacerbates. And that not even counting the damage to and by actual addicts?
Personally I wouldn't shed a tear if all the pokie machines were dropped off the end of Queen's Wharf tomorrow. I came close to shedding a tear when I had to help destroy a (huge) shipment of illegally imported whiskey, vodka & gin that customs had seized.
We have a range of legislation about who can drink and buy drink, and when and where, etc. Obviously it reduces some of the harm of alcohol, but people will still mistreat it.
We have a range of legislation about pokies. It could probably stand a decent overhaul.I'm not sure where pokies fit on the spectrum of vices, whether they are closer to alcohol; fun in moderation, but can be abused; or more like P - possible to take casually, but much more likely to hook you in and ruin your life and health. I don't think there are many who would argue that P should be banned. There are those that argue that alcohol should be banned, but not many.
-
I came close to shedding a tear when I had to help destroy a (huge) shipment of illegally imported whiskey, vodka & gin that customs had seized.
Don't they auction that kind of thing? Why not - seems like a big waste of money?
-
I think the ban on P is an example of the failure of prohibition. In countries where there is a supply of better, safer drugs (like MDMA) methamphetamine is almost unheard of.
But we've gone there before.
-
Don't they auction that kind of thing? Why not - seems like a big waste of money?
I know! Because it had been imported through all the wrong channels there was no way to know it was all authentic and safe to drink etc. I was willing to take that risk, but the rules said it had to be destroyed, and officially certified to have been destroyed.
-
You mean the buzz of risk taking, the sparkle of the lights, the agony of the miss and perhaps even the thrill of winning. What you term psychological deceptions, are what a lot of people do call fun. So no kidding, take the fun out and it will be less profitable.
Angus, honestly, have you actually spent much time around people playing pokies in pubs? They do not appear to be enthused with "the buzz of risk taking, the sparkle of the lights"; they're usually silent, fixated and excluded.
I can't imagine they go home and enthuse over the roller-coaster night they had on the pokies where they almost won big but then lost their money.
You earlier mentioned people socialising and chatting over pokies. I can honestly say I've never seen people socialise over pokies. It's not how they work.
Yep, they have a right to play the machines; and the people who operate the pokies have the right to take their money off them through whatever logic can be programmed into the machines, including the illusions of skill and hope. But don't romanticise it.
Anyway, we've got Ben over from "I don't hold with any of this harm reduction stuff" to "communities should have a choice" inside 24 hours, so perhaps that'll do me on this topic ...
-
People are killed in cars all the time, but the benefit of having them outweighs that.
I'm trying to find an argument which links gambling to cigarettes. In theory at least, I would like cigarettes to be made completely illegal, on the basis that they provide no benefits at all, either to the user or others, are addictive, and cause a great deal of harm, both to the user and people around them.
Yet I'll admit that people getting enjoyment from gambling provides individual enjoyment (I don't think there's any community benefit from pokie machines at all, the community funds could easily come from taxation would would be much more sensible, like Smokefree funding).
That probably makes it more like alcohol. Does individual harm, and harm to the community, but has benefits for the individual. And I wouldn't want alcohol banned.
I'm going to say at present that I haven't found my argument, and put to the side the possibility that I'm a hypocrite in favour of alcohol but not other 'vices'.
-
One more: I did actually once weigh the relative merits of pot and pokies in a post about Peter Dunne.
-
Kyle wrote :
I'm trying to find an argument which links gambling to cigarettes. In theory at least, I would like cigarettes to be made completely illegal, on the basis that they provide no benefits at all, either to the user or others, are addictive, and cause a great deal of harm, both to the user and people around them.
That definitely sounds like pokies to me...
However, for a night out at the casino or day at the races, then, as you said :
That probably makes it more like alcohol.
Many people enjoy it, but it destroys the life of those who abuse it (and their families).
I too would like to see cigarettes and gambling not exist in our society, but prohibiting them just makes them available for criminals to make money out of.
(I always liked the idea of increasing the minimum age at which you can buy cigarettes by 1 year each year).
-
That definitely sounds like pokies to me...
I don't think that pokies have no benefit at all. A lot of people can have a wee flutter on the pokies and enjoy themselves for half an hour and that's it. I know I did once last year, and I haven't touched one since.
I always liked the idea of increasing the minimum age at which you can buy cigarettes by 1 year each year
That's what I'd want to do - set a fixed birthdate, after which you couldn't buy cigarettes. The black market is a problem, but I also couldn't get around the international element - tourism, people moving here etc. How much would it cost the NZ tourist industry if most of the people who smoked stopped coming here (and would there be any benefit in promoting ourselves as a smokefree destination)?
-
Angus, honestly, have you actually spent much time around people playing pokies in pubs? They do not appear to be enthused with "the buzz of risk taking, the sparkle of the lights"; they're usually silent, fixated and excluded.
Sounds much like many activities, which the people indulging in them seem to enjoy. I remember very similar expressions on the faces of kids in art classes, especially the ones who were really into their art. Hardcore gamers look a lot like that too. I play chess much like that. In fact most things I do that involve concentration show those symptoms. People watching TV are much the same.
I'm totally against Kyle's wanting to ban cigarettes for the same reason. To say there is nothing good about cigarettes is wrong. It is for many people a stress relieving ritual, and an excuse to socialize. That's worth something.
Anyway, we've got Ben over from "I don't hold with any of this harm reduction stuff" to "communities should have a choice" inside 24 hours
LOL, yes you've clarified me to that. In the interests of trying to contain my usual verbosity, I didn't caveat my first claim with the entire theory surrounding it. Harm reduction coming in at a national level annoys me a great deal, having people from the South Island saying what pill poppers in Auckland can or cannot do with their spare time. Harm reduction at a community level makes me all warm and fuzzy. I'm glad they asked my whole street if it would be OK to build a massive retirement village down my street, laying out the number of years it would take etc. That's due process. But following my principles I also said 'yes of course you can'. If they proposed pokies in my area I'd say 'I don't want them'. But I wouldn't say 'I don't want anyone to have them'. If the community goes for it, then I'll just continue to be puzzled by gambling, and shake my head as I walk past about my own business, as I do for so many other vices.
It goes to choice. Banning stuff at a national level means that if I really like my gambling I've got to leave NZ. But if it's just banned in Avondale (I was wondering what you were going on about with 'targetting poor communities' driving around yesterday and failing to see one single pokies outlet. Then I went past the racecourse and all became clear), I can still drive to, say, Pt Chev, where folks might not be such killjoys. Or is it the other way around?
If all those poor Maori women vote against pokies in their area, fine. I personally doubt they would. I think that's just one suburb being snobby on another.
-
</aside>
Actually I think I took a few $$ off a big casino/hotel in Reno the week after Burning Man - by the simple expedient of staying in one of their USD45 hotel rooms and not gambling a single cent. The place was actually cheaper than Motel 6.
Heh heh. I did the same a few years back, with a deluxe room at the Treasure Island in Vegas a few years back. Dialled their 0800 from LA and asked what their midweek specials were for Amex card holders. My GF (now wife) and I stayed 4 days and didn't gamble once. Until the last night, when we felt we should have a go, since we were in Vegas afterall, and only $100, US dollars, each.
I played Blackjack which bored my wife (if only I'd worn a Tux! She mighta thought I was Sean Connery) so she took off to the slot machines. Evidently women luuurve those flashing lights and twinkly noises, and she was no exception.
About 20 minutes later she was back, having lost ALL her money. I on the other hand was $100 up, so we were still even. But she wanted me to give her the $100 I was ahead so she could keep gambling. I refused because clearly she was on a losing streak and didn't know sh1t about gambling, unlike myself who was clearly the master of the tables. In a few more minutes buxom blondes would be elbowing my GF out of the way, and the Pit Boss would be coming over to usher me up to the VIP tables.
So she got really sh1tty and told me to hurry up cos she was bored, and stood beside me rolling her eyes, asking me the equivalent of "Are we there yet?" at every hand. She was agitated, which made me agitated, and it only took another 10 minutes for me to lose all concentration and the $100 I was ahead. The next $100 only took 5 minutes, at which point she was finally happy, because we were both losers.For a similar (okay, spectacularly worse) adventure I can heartily recommend this comedy (wife loses entire life savings while hubby sleeps in Vegas hotel room).
-
You were right, I/O. According to one of the factsheets I linked to upthread, blackjack has a much higher rate of return to the punter than pokies. You, with your hunter-gather male neurology, know that.
OTOH, perhaps the patriarchy just set things up so the ladies lost again ...
-
I'm totally against Kyle's wanting to ban cigarettes for the same reason. To say there is nothing good about cigarettes is wrong. It is for many people a stress relieving ritual, and an excuse to socialize. That's worth something.
By that logic, if there are people who find... I dunno, dog fighting... a stress relief, and a way to meet other arseholes, then it has a positive role to play in society, and we should be weighing it up against the fact that it's a terrible thing to do to dogs before making it illegal.
The two things you've created there are inherent in the object. A cigarette is a stress relieving ritual because it's addictive and it relieves withdrawl symptoms when you smoke it. Similarly heroin is a stress relieving ritual, yet it doesn't appear next to foot massages in the yellow pages.
-
Kyle, yup, and nup.
Yes the human enjoyment of dog fighting is a factor. The animal cruelty outweighs it, IMHO.
I think the reduction of withdrawal symptoms is a part of the ritual of smoking, but not even the biggest part. The physical addiction ends after only a few days. What the smokers I know who have tried to quit and failed have said is that it's the psychological addiction to the ritual itself that was the hardest to kick. Substituting another ritual works quite well. I have personally enjoyed stress relieving smoking without ever getting addicted. Like I said, it's the ritual, the socializing, the attention and care that the taking of it demands etc. I don't do it very often because it's obviously very unhealthy, but there are times in my life when it has helped me to calm down and focus.
And you're making your heroin point to the wrong guy. I think it should be allowed. I think the enjoyment that a large number of heroin users might get is not an irrelevant factor over the smaller number who will no doubt ruin their lives. Although I would suggest that injecting it would seem less appealing if other very similar drugs were available to be taken in much safer ways. Like eating or smoking it. The particular appeal of that form of use seems to be dictated by the convenience it gives the drug traffickers.
As for foot massages, that stuff is sick man. Imagine some guy lying there in a dreamy haze feeling pleasure from something that is a human invention to trick the nervous system. What's wrong with someone who likes that, couldn't they just get a job and save money for their kids education and charity? They might as well flush the money down the toilet for all the real benefit it gives them.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.