IT WAS NEW YEAR’S EVE in Havana. Chronologically, 1958 was about to make way for 1959. Politically, the corrupt, gangster-ridden government of Fulgencio Batista was about to make way for the revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro.
The moment of transition arrived with the news that the inland city of Santa Clara had fallen to the forces of Commandante Che Guevara. Realising that the game was up, Batista fled to the airport and boarded a plane for the Dominican Republic.
As word spread that the hated dictator and his cronies had fled the island, joyful crowds poured into the streets – and invaded the Mafia-run casinos. Before long, above the chanting of “Viva Fidel!”, another sound could be heard: the crashing of metal on concrete and the shattering of glass.
The people of Havana were smashing the casinos’ detested “one-armed bandits” – what a New Zealander, living in 2013, would call – “the pokies”.
No left-winger worthy of the name has even the slightest tolerance for the sort of gambling that preys upon the poor and the vulnerable in the manner of a casino. Betting on horse-racing is grudgingly tolerated because it is possible – at least theoretically – for someone who follows the “sport of kings” to make a reasonable fist of picking which horse will win or place in a race.
But the casino is an entirely different proposition to a horse race. Everything in a casino has been put there to ensure that “the House never loses”. Every game in the casino is offered to the punter not to test his skill, but to make the owner richer. Collectively, the punters are never allowed to win. The slightest sign that a casino’s customers may have perfected a way of beating the odds – by “counting cards”, for example – will see them ejected from the premises and barred permanently from its gaming tables.
Of all the devices for separating the poor, the desperate and the people we call “problem gamblers” from their money, the pokie machine is the most pernicious. It is pre-programmed to deliver more (much more!) to its owner than is ever paid out.
Tragically, the people who play the pokies don’t understand this. Why? Because most of them are victims of what’s called the “gambler’s fallacy” – i.e. the notion that the more times an expected outcome fails to occur, the greater the probability that it will occur in the future. It is this fatal misunderstanding of probability that keeps people pushing coins into the slot. They are absolutely convinced that a win is “due” and that if they stop someone else will get “their” jackpot.
Providing a casino with a licence to operate pokie machines is, therefore, pretty much the same as providing its owner with a licence to print money. That it might also be a licence to destroy the happiness, the businesses and, all-too-often, the lives of countless individuals is acknowledged by requiring the casino operator to set a small portion of his profits aside to combat the harm his business is causing. (Which is a bit like making the street thug donate a small fraction of the money he steals from his victims to the local hospital in order to offset the cost of any injuries inflicted during the course of his robberies!)
In short, pokies are a curse – and no political leader, or party, whose objective is to end poverty and fight exploitation should ever be found anywhere near a casino – nor, for that matter, in anything belonging to a casino.
Like a corporate box.
Hear, hear.
One really does have to wonder at the supposed cognitive competency of the decision making process, as demonstrated by David Shearer, Phil Goff, Annette King, Kris Faafoi and Clayton Cosgrove.
They should be ashamed to show their faces in public – in perpetuity.
Blinking idiots.
Is there a way your post can be sent to the Labour caucus?
I think that Labour are so tainted by its actions in the 1980s that they cannot free themselves from the neo-liberal trap they fell into then. Of course Goff was part of that government and as a result he is highly compromised. The Labour Party, until it completely and unreservedly renounces its actions of the Douglas era, cannot make a true link with the working people of NZ.
Some of them don’t want to change the neo-liberal paradigm as they still believe the no alternative argument; others are so fatally compromised they can do nothing. These ‘Labour’ leaders have supped with he corporate devil for a long time and are in debit to business.
Labour needs new leadership and members of parliament – not the careerists presently in power.
Paul, they will have read this. Trust me, this is one of the blogs they’d frequent.
No political leader, or party, whose objective is to end poverty and fight exploitation should ever be found anywhere near a casino – nor, for that matter, in anything belonging to a casino.
Just not anywhere near a casino or in anything belonging to?
Is it all right to deal with them regarding building convention centres?
And/ or is the corollary of what is written, that we do not have a political leader, or party, whose objective is to end poverty and fight exploitation?
How could they be such cretins? They might as well all resign now.
Sad but so very true. Impossible hope dangled before the innocent like the “north of $50/wk” lie by heartless filth. Maggot behavour from the hapless four.
(as always, untouchable class matched only by your prolificity. Sincere thanks, and take care: if you’re not one of the 85 I’ll eat my potae).
Excellent Post Chris Trotter and great ‘ comments ‘ too . Thinkers , the lot of you . ‘ The sparks from the match that lit the fuse ! ‘
You are all right and correct .
I was talking to someone recently who told me that in their view , John Key was a con man . He’d been rubbing social shoulders with the little shit and instinctually came to that chilling conclusion .
Now , let that realization sink in for a moment . It took me a little while , a stiff whiskey , a smoke and a stroll around the garden to allow that concept to fall on what few brain cells I had left that were not lying in hammocks under a coconut palm , sipping tall , frosty gin and tonics .
Thusly , I came up with this brain-thing .
John Key is a crook . So are his neoliberal cronies . Some are more powerful than others and so they lean on those lesser crooks to shut their yap , be happy with the scraps that fall on the floor or else .
Our political spectrum isn’t Right and Left , suggesting a constant clash of ideals driven by good intentions . It’s more just a pack of lying criminals vying for as much as they can get before we people , sleeping up stairs in the Big House as they make off with the down stairs lounge furniture , the TV , stereo , coffee table , pictures , books , carpets , curtains , wall paper , light switches , light bulbs , screws , nails , even the dust in the corners .
If we start to stir , they whisper to us that they’re simply moving stuff around to have a decent clean up . And anything left over will be sold to pay for yet another mortgage payment .
We’re being conned . All of us . From farmers to pot-hole fixing guys . From the unemployed to the terminally work addicted . There’s no Labour Left or National Right . There’s Them and then there’s Us . We sleep , albeit fitfully while they loot us literally to death . The parasites are killing off the host , such is their obscene lust for power and money .
Of course they’ll build Casinos in at risk cities . In at risk countries . It’s what criminals do . Criminals have no conscience about what they do . In fact they think they deserve to get what they can . If we don’t put up a fight , serves us right . If we leave the house unlocked , serves us right if we get ripped off .
Isn’t that right ? You dirty filthy little Insurance scum . You create an unholy environment within which we must live then YOU make profits from that dysfunction then blame US for leaving the house , car and things out for the criminals you created to steal off with . Sounds like a casino dressed in different scales to me .
Great Post again Chris Trotter . Brilliant analogy , to bring in what happened in Cuba .
As for Shearer et al being busted in a box . I told you ! Didn’t I tell you ? Yes , I did !
I saw a man on the TV last night . A worried looking man say ” The Government ! It’s outa control ! ”
I say ‘ No shit Sherlock ! ‘ .
We have a frightening leadership deficit and someone had better do something fucking quick !
David Cunliffe ? Lianne Dalziel ? Now ! Now !
Oh , and by the way . I had a reply to my letter to the Queen outlining my concerns re ‘ neoliberalism etc . Her reply took ages to get back to me because she hadn’t put sufficient return postage on it ! Hahahaah ! Seriously ! I have the envelope with the sticker on it .
Her staff sent my letter on to the Governor General , saying it was his job etc .
Well , I’m fucked then . No wonder I had a freaky phone call about a month ago . A man asked if I was who I was . I said ” Speaking , how are you and how can I help ? ” The creepy man said ” I’m good thank you … ‘click ‘ ” ! ? Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ……
Countryboy – your comments are every bit as insightful as the blogposts that follow.
Chris – well written. I never thought I’d say thi, but this time the Right Wing bloggers have good cause to put the boot in. This wasn’t just hypocrisy – this was a clear indication that certain Labour MPs do not understand the role that they are supposed to be fulfilling.
To carry your story about the Cuban revolution a step further; how would it have looked if Fidel, Che, and other senior revolutionaries – after deposing Batista – had then piled into the Havana casinos and started playing the pokies with cash looted from the central bank?
This is precisely how it looks when four senior Labour Ministers partake of Skycity’s “generosity”.
As right winger blogger also stated, Kris Faafoi, who had media experience, should have know how this would look once it came out in the public arena.
I think all four of these people should review their position as Labour MPs.
Perhaps it is time for new blood. Blood not contaminated by parasites that feed of our society.
As for Shearer… Until now I’ve not joined in with the debate on Labour’s leadership. Perhaps that is about to change.
Four very silly Labour MPs and a leader who should have had the nouse to pre-empt this. The Green’s must be furious. The real hypocrisy however is John Key’s, supposedly our defender of democracy, instead he trades our democracy for a corrupt and socially destructive organisation’s private benefit.
An article in the Scientific American a few years ago examined casinos, and their supposed economic benefits. Almost without exception, there were no economic, social or employment benefits – casinos are always parasitic economic entities, they are in effect a license steal the wealth and suck the social lifeblood out of the communities in which they operate. They attract criminal activity and, as we’ve seen here, corrupt local democratic processes. I can’t find the full article, but there’s a mention here of another paper http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=casinos-more-often-lead-t
I don’t know if we can shut casinos down, I’d like to , but as an alternative I’d like to see a law that if a casino accepts money from any punter, who is later found guilty of misappropriating or stealing the funds that were used for his or her gambling, or funds used in laundering operations, then the casino would be liable to repay all money received from such punters and returned to the person/company/entity that had their assets stolen. They should also be prosecuted and face hefty fines in addition.
I think that would put the proverbial feral cat among the strutting pigeons.
Makes sense when you think about it. After all, when police recover stolen property that has been on-sold, it is usually returned to the original owner.
I can’t see why they should’t happen in the case of mis-appropriated funds spent at a casino.
I’ve been thinking the same thing for years now. I always suspected Helen Clark and John Key high-fived each other when they passed in the beehive. Western democracy has become a scam; the cynic in me says that perhaps it always was, by design. An inside job. The choice we are given is pure illusion. We do it because we think we can enact real change without the awful mess of revolution. Sure they tinker with things on the fringes, but genuine reform and change don’t happen, unless of course it’s of the variety that is profitable to themselves or their crony mates. Which is why things really are getting worse, because the change we do get is primarily aimed at funnelling the surplus wealth we ALL created into the hands of ever fewer people… exactly the business model of a casino. We’ve been lulled into a permanent state of apathy. Until the TV switches off and/or we start going hungry the looting of OUR country will continue unabated, regardless of whose name we tick in the polling booth.
First-rate column, first-rate comments.
‘They are absolutely convinced that a win is “due” and that if they stop, someone else will get “their” jackpot.’
I can relate to that. I spend the princely sum of $2.40 a week on Lotto and I’ve had the same numbers since the year dot. Surely my chances of them coming up are increasing? Fortunately my son is mathematically literate and he explained how my numbers had the same chance each week, until the end of time itself. I know he’s right, even though my understanding is still somewhat hazy.
It would be a truly radical move to simply ban pokie machines outright.
No one has actually said what purpose they serve?
[…] Why Pokie Machines Should Be the First Victims of the Revolution By Chris Trotter https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/06/14/why-pokie-machines-should-be-the-first-victims-of-the-revolutio… […]
Someone talk to Google adds about the “farm Fortune” advertising!!
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