_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
kqr wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
> [...] pokies users at risk of addiction (this groups makes up
one-third of users).
> [...] According to the Productivity Commission, 88% of players
restrict themselves to less than $1 for each bet. Problem and at-risk
gamblers donât.
These fractions of problem users are higher than I expected. Previous
reading in the area (A World of Chance; Brenner, Brenner, and Brown)
had led me to believe problem gambling is about as prevalent among
gamblers as problem drinking is among drinkers.
What makes up the discrepancy? Does the commission have a looser
definition of problem use than Brenner and Brenner? Or are drinking
problems also more widespread than I believe?
ozzydave wrote 12 hours 40 min ago:
Blow up the pokies
Solvency wrote 13 hours 45 min ago:
what is it with Australians and having the cheesiest names for
everything? pokies. electricians are sparkies. bikkie. spewie. budgie.
brekky.
it's like a bunch of babytalk only it's said by literally everyone.
pimlottc wrote 7 hours 3 min ago:
I agree, other cultures are stupid.
relaxing wrote 7 hours 7 min ago:
Wait til you hear what the Germans call a cellphone.
VelesDude wrote 11 hours 10 min ago:
Spoken like a real Gronk! Nah, your cool.
I suspect it is just something we picked up from our British
heritage, the whole slang thing.
Apple and Pairs, Up the Stairs - all that.
I do find it funny when some folks have been here for a few years and
they have picked up all the slang. Someone I used to know had been
here for 10 years but still had a very thick Italian accent. It was
always a joy when he would bust out a sentence like "I took the mars
bar up the Tulla but it was right chockers. All I wanted for a
Chook!". Translated, "I took the car up the freeway but there was a
traffic jam. I wanted a hot chicken."
jdietrich wrote 11 hours 44 min ago:
Australian slang represents something important about Australian
values - mateship, the Anzac spirit, a fair go. Aussies don't talk
like poms, because they aren't like poms.
Ylpertnodi wrote 9 hours 6 min ago:
...or other English speakers.
brainwad wrote 12 hours 40 min ago:
Because it's fun to have diminutive version of many words. And
because it differentiates us from boorish Americans - or as they are
also known in Oz, seppos.
robocat wrote 11 hours 34 min ago:
> seppos
seppo is short for septic, which is short for septic tank, which
rhymes with yank, and yank is a word used for any American. And
although yank comes from yankee, we mostly donât discriminate
between north and south so it is a general term.
Like all words in Aussie only context can make it insulting - it
can just as easily be used in a friendly way. Apparently the word
seppo is not used much, maybe mostly by older Ockers. Iâm
summarising a long discussion on the word and usage that goes into
more detail: [1] > what is it with Australians and having the
cheesiest names for everything
It is just language diverging memetically. A small part of it is
signalling you are not a stuck up snob.
The wannabe hoity-toity âIâm better than youâ-types try and
change their accent and word usage to match some âeducatedâ
upperclassish snobby accent and then they speak down to others and
try to correct their English. Some of the snobby accent is memetic
- due to hanging around a particular social group.
The accusation of baby-talk and cheesy comes across as aggressively
stuck-up to me.
Iâm from New Zealand and it is fun to see some snobby bitch get
drunk and then hear her accent shift to some bogan accent(âhick
drawl) from their childhood. Iâve seen the same thing with some
suits in a bimmer in a wealthy suburb change their whole demeanour
to rural farmer-types given circumstances. In New Zealand farmers
are often wealthy and their kids often get expensive private
education and move into professional jobs.
URI [1]: https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-australians-call...
BobaFloutist wrote 12 hours 22 min ago:
Surely it's to differentiate you from the English. We may not be a
commonwealth, but surely our origin in common with Australia grants
us that much?
brainwad wrote 12 hours 18 min ago:
The English/British and their media are not as jarringly foreign
as Americans, because Australian culture and language diverged
from English culture much later than American did.
There's also 5x fewer of them, so they are less of a threat to
our minority culture than Americans are - Americans don't realise
just how dominant American English is in the Anglosphere and how
hard it is to resist.
bitwize wrote 12 hours 31 min ago:
I once saw a sign in Australia warning about crossing train tracks.
In the land of the free, the sign would have all the coziness of a
Secret Service agent:
KEEP OFF TRAIN TRACKS - $100 FINE PER VIOLATION
But this was Australia. So it actually read something like this:
"Cross tracks safely and only at the provided walkways. Or cop a
$100 fine. Don't say we didn't warn you, mate!"
seabass-labrax wrote 11 hours 16 min ago:
For comparison, the standard text in Great Britain is exactly as
follows:
Warning
Do not trespass on the Railway
Penalty £1000
brainwad wrote 11 hours 11 min ago:
The actual signs in Sydney look like
Danger
Don't cross the tracks
- use the bridge.
Fines up to $5,500 apply.
( [1] )
URI [1]: https://railgallery.wongm.com/cache/sydney-suburban/F1...
seabass-labrax wrote 10 hours 8 min ago:
That's arguably a lot better than the British ones:
- They give an safe, alternative action, which might not be
obvious to some people.
- They state the authority by which the fine is issued (too
small to read fully from the photograph, but something like
"...Regulation 2003"). Interestingly, a historical railway
sign preserved at Beamish has the name of the officer by
whose authority the fine would have been issued at that
time[1].
- The fine is given as 'up to' the maximum. As I understand
it, the British fine is only £1000 if it can be proved that
the violation was made wilfully, and non-wilful trespassing
is usually (perhaps always?) only subject to a fine if done
subsequent to having received a warning.
[1]
URI [1]: https://www.deviantart.com/rlkitterman/art/NER-Publi...
settsu wrote 13 hours 27 min ago:
Maybe an equallly interesting question to ask yourself is why you
associated those with "babytalk".
smaudet wrote 13 hours 35 min ago:
I posit that its due to hardship - not to suggest all Australians are
super hard off, but it is certainly true that acronyms/shortened
words are more common in rural (think high intensity physical labor)
or speed-sensitive contexts (think Wall Street, engineering jargon in
a engineering context, such as software, or SMS text-messaging).
Given their origins as a prison labor camp, coupled with a
legitimately difficult environment (hot, arid, isolated by thousands
of miles of ocean, fairly wild/aggressive wildlife such as
crocodiles, snakes, kangaroos), their propensity to shortened, almost
mono or duo-syllabic words makes plenty of sense in that context.
fian wrote 7 hours 11 min ago:
Shorter words mean less time with your mouth open which means less
chance for the flies to get in.
Joker_vD wrote 12 hours 57 min ago:
And finally I've seen the (variation of the) argument usually
applied to the Russians, about their slavish nature ("During the
Stalin's reign, half of the country was in jail and the other half
was the jailers" etc.) leading to the impossibility for them to
form a civilized and liberal society, which is usually retorted
with an example of the Australians... being applied to the
Australians itself.
No, one doesn't need to be of good breed to be freely able to speak
multisyllabic words.
smaudet wrote 12 hours 36 min ago:
> No, one doesn't need to be of good breed to be freely able to
speak multisyllabic words.
Eh? Not what I'm saying at all. Breed has nothing to do with
it... circumstance has much more to do with word shortenings...
not sure what I got downvoted for...
jon_adler wrote 14 hours 0 min ago:
Sad to discover that the (reasonable) reforms were quickly scuppered.
URI [1]: https://theconversation.com/pokies-reforms-explained-how-good-...
edward28 wrote 8 hours 40 min ago:
The gambling companies have a lot of political sway here.
tennis_80 wrote 14 hours 8 min ago:
I started my career working on gambling apps, and itâs one of my red
lines now when looking for work.
Itâs an evil industry - full of dark patterns. I remember
implementing a âcancel withdrawalâ feature where essentially: the
casino could deposit money in a customers bank account in a day when
they request it. They instead choose to hold it in a pending state for
a week, and allow them to cancel the withdrawal at any point in that
week to immediately play with. Presumably so it didnât feel as real
as money leaving the gamblers bank account.
eterm wrote 10 hours 48 min ago:
The major UK sites have recently done a similarly dark move by
adjusting their definition of "Depost Limit".
Used to be if you set, e.g. a £50/month deposit limit, then you
couldn't deposit more than £50 a month.
They recently changed it to be a net limit, so if you withdrawl £500
after a win, you can now deposit £550.
While it can be argued that it still acts as a guardrail for maximum
losses, it absolutely encourages problem gamblers to deposit more.
tudorw wrote 14 hours 22 min ago:
I don't recall the name of the paper, surprising to me, it was fairly
detailed on how the 'satisfaction' gamblers experienced was from the
familiar losses, not the occasional wins, viewed in that light it's
even more tragic.
beckthompson wrote 14 hours 30 min ago:
Man this article is sad. Being addicted to gambling really does suck
the life out you.
ryandrake wrote 13 hours 21 min ago:
As a non-addicted, casual gambler (I recreationally play 1-2 no limit
poker at casinos once in a blue moon), I'd hate to see casinos simply
disappear, but yea they tend to be kind of sad places full of the
people who can least afford to lose the money in their pocket. Don't
know what the solution is. If you outlaw it, you're getting rid of a
benign source of casual fun for folks like me who can keep it under
control, and are not really addressing the underlying addiction of
the victims--they'll just move on to underground casinos and/or more
extreme gambling.
gregw134 wrote 13 hours 4 min ago:
I found a local poker club, fortunately. $40 buy in tournament, no
rebuys, every week, with the same 30 or so people that show up. Way
more fun than playing at the casino with sad addicts and sad poker
pros grinding $40k annual salaries.
ryandrake wrote 12 hours 53 min ago:
Yea, I mean I do this too, including hosting my own home games.
Our local club even hires dealers to help keep the games moving.
My fear is that there's no great way to outlaw predatory casinos
that pick the pockets of the poor, that still allows responsible
home games and private clubs. A lot of US states try/tried
various ways, with rules about who can take a rake and so on, but
it's difficult to make them ironclad and casinos are highly
motivated to find loopholes and operate a millimeter from the
edge of the law. And if you get too strict, suddenly you've
criminalized grandma's $0.25 bingo game with the ladies.
andrewstuart wrote 13 hours 11 min ago:
Society pays a pretty high price for that casual fun for people
like you.
Maybe go see a movie instead.
kqr wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
You could say the same about alcohol but banning that also didn't
work out.
ElevenLathe wrote 12 hours 15 min ago:
Unfortunately, there's not a livable version of society where we
"ban" gambling. Doing so just pushes it underground, and
therefore inevitably into the hands of some kind of organized
crime. I imagine the best compromise would be to create a state
monopoly and make it easily (but not universally) available,
while also trying to push some social stigma against it.
Unfortunately for harmful vices like this, the anglosphere (and I
assume a lot of other places) tends to oscillate between
prohibition and hands-off marketism.
We are seeing similar with sports betting and marijuana in the
US. Less than ten years ago, these were major crimes basically
everywhere. Now, in large swaths of the country, you can't drive
a mile without seeing a billboard for one or the other. Making
them illegal again is not the answer, but we don't seem to have a
standard way of shading things like this in any meaningful way.
(By the way, I'm not against people smoking a little weed or
betting on football, but plenty of people do get momentum with
both and it can have harmful effects for them. I believe the
industries pushing both behaviors are in large part profiting off
this small group of heavy "users". )
worik wrote 8 hours 34 min ago:
> Unfortunately, there's not a livable version of society where
we "ban" gambling
True
But we can regulate it
We can limit the damage
mynameishere wrote 10 hours 38 min ago:
just pushes it underground
Why is this an argument? So push it underground. As a rule,
old folks aren't going to take their pensions to Fast Freddy's
strip club backroom poker nights. People think that because a
law doesn't work 100 percent, it shouldn't exist.
klyrs wrote 7 hours 48 min ago:
> As a rule, old folks aren't going to take their pensions to
Fast Freddy's strip club backroom poker nights
Trivially so. People with gambling addictions don't wind up
as old folks with pensions.
ryandrake wrote 10 hours 29 min ago:
What do you think gambling-addicted "old folks" who live in
areas where gambling is illegal do today? They either hop a
short flight to a place where it is legal OR head to Fast
Freddy's. People absolutely do participate in illegal
gambling when legal gambling is off the table, whether they
are elderly or not.
Retric wrote 9 hours 40 min ago:
Some is very different than every.
Banning subsidized travel to casinoâs alone would go
quite far. Similarly banning slot machines from having
sound, flashing lights, animations etc would reduce though
obviously not eliminate the draw.
pixl97 wrote 12 hours 26 min ago:
Vice has a cost. Anti-vice has a cost. There is no such thing as
a free lunch and you're going to pay the piper somewhere. While
I'm not a gambler myself, the "Just don't do $vice$" moral
argument just never works on it's own.
Joker_vD wrote 14 hours 8 min ago:
I've played enough poker (and similar games) on computer (against
bots, no real money) to know that 1) I am quite bad at assessing the
expected value of my moves; 2) I am quite... what's the English word
for someone who gets way too excited from the thrill of gambling and
forgoes the caution? "Hasardeux" is French for it, but I don't think
"hazardous" has that sense in English? Anyhow, I do know quite well
that were I to gamble with real money, I'd very soon go broke and
it's not a difficult observation to make, even for someone as bad at
self-reflection as myself. So, I don't gamble.
And yet apparently there is something about gambling with real-life
consequences that is very attractive to oh so many people who (again,
apparently) can not replicate the similar experience in a less
life-ruining way, so they return to gamble again and again?
csa wrote 10 hours 43 min ago:
There are several terms of art in poker that describe various
versions of this:
action player â This is fairly neutral, and describes what I
think you mean. Someone who likes to gamble. Sometimes these
players are really bad, sometimes they are only sort of bad. These
players make bank when playing against weak players who overfold
and arenât willing to gamble.
VIP â This is a polite way to say âdonatorâ. Many/most action
players are VIPs. Their attitude is that they can gamble in the
pits or gamble at the poker table, and often times the poker table
presents less bad (or even good) odds when compared to the house.
LAGtard â LAG is short for âloose aggressiveâ. LAG can be a
very profitable style, especially when deep stacked. That said,
LAGtards tend to play the style badly.
spewy â describes someone who puts a lot of chips into the pot,
often times in questionable spots. Noun form is âspewtardâ.
BobaFloutist wrote 12 hours 23 min ago:
Poker players would label you as being strategically too
"aggressive", but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with
emotion, it's just what they would call the way you play.
saghm wrote 12 hours 51 min ago:
> what's the English word for someone who gets way too excited from
the thrill of gambling and forgoes the caution? "Hasardeux" is
French for it, but I don't think "hazardous" has that sense in
English?
The best I can come up with is "adrenaline junky", but that isn't
specific to gambling; I feel like people use that to refer to
people who like base jumping or something.
Terr_ wrote 11 hours 29 min ago:
Well, since we're all already in pedantic grammarian territory:
That would be "junkie", since it is a noun identifying an
addicted person.
In contrast, "junky" is an adjective to describe a generally bad
state or quality. "Junky adrenaline" is probably medical waste.
Ex: "It's not safe to travel in a junky car driven by a junkie.
Worse still to sail on a junkie's junky junk."
mateo411 wrote 13 hours 39 min ago:
> I am quite... what's the English word for someone who gets way
too excited from the thrill of gambling and forgoes the caution?
I think degen is the common term that used here. It's short for
degenerate.
MaxfordAndSons wrote 13 hours 3 min ago:
I guess you're getting downvoted because people think you mean HN
by "here", but you meant amongst gamblers. And you're right, it
is the most apt term gp was looking for.
Joker_vD wrote 12 hours 54 min ago:
I definitely was not. "Courageous", "adventurous",
"risk-taking", "reckless", "impudent", "bold", "daring", but
with something that would mean "...almost and even to a fault
or own peril", but without an inherent negative moral
connotation is what I was looking for.
MaxfordAndSons wrote 10 hours 32 min ago:
It doesn't have an inherent negative moral connotation when
used amongst gamblers. It's been reclaimed, so to speak. But
I suppose we're not amongst gamblers here, so, fair enough.
Terr_ wrote 13 hours 36 min ago:
> I think degen is the common term that used here.
Sir, I think you mixed up your HN account with 4Chan...
_dain_ wrote 12 hours 45 min ago:
"degenerate fuckin gambler" is a common term predating 4chan
[1] >(of a gambler) Addictive or compulsive.
URI [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/degenerate#Adjective
Terr_ wrote 13 hours 50 min ago:
> I am quite... what's the English word for someone who gets way
too excited from the thrill of gambling and forgoes the caution?
"Hasardeux" is French for it, but I don't think "hazardous" has
that sense in English?
Does the word have to denote (literally mean) that the person is
emotionally excited and engaged at the same time? If so, then
perhaps "a daredevil", "hotheaded", "impetuous", "impulsive" or
"rash".
There are a lot of close words like "reckless" or "irresponsible"
which are often used when the person is excited, but technically
they don't require it. Someone can be quite reckless while also
half-asleep doing something they don't personally care about.
germinalphrase wrote 13 hours 52 min ago:
âwith reckless abandonâ might be an equivalent phrase, e.g.
âhe played poker with reckless abandonâ.
lostlogin wrote 13 hours 53 min ago:
> what's the English word for someone who gets way too excited from
the thrill of gambling and forgoes the caution? "Hasardeux" is
French for it
Is this âa gamblerâ? Addict, risk taker or similar?
jddj wrote 14 hours 30 min ago:
Some real australiana here.
To paint the picture for those who aren't familiar, the industry is
enormous and, in NSW in particular, extremely powerful.
For a while (still? Not sure) in Brisbane, for example, you couldn't
enter a bar after 1:30am unless it was a casino.
In NSW the sports clubs, of which there is one in every midsized town,
have busses which circulate the retirement communities and bring the
elderly to the poker machines for the day then drop them home again,
broke. The busiest day is pension day.
Most small pubs have a larger and busier poker machine area than
bar/beer garden area. Large "sports clubs" dedicate entire floors.
Australians lose the most money per capita to gambling by a significant
margin.[1]
URI [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/552821/gambling-losses-per...
VelesDude wrote 11 hours 19 min ago:
Yep, until folks see it they cannot understand the scale of these
things.
It isn't just Crown in Melbourne, which for most folks is more like
the traditional Vegas casino. All my local RSL's/Pubs are all about
50% pokie machines.
And yep, that complimentary bus is not there to bring the old folks
in for a pot and parma.
Funnily enough, while it isn't the most pervasive, in New Zealand is
where I have seen folks that are betting the highest. The wave of
depression that hits you when see a lot of people all down on their
luck betting $10 a spin every few seconds is just wild! I mean, yeah
the Christchurch winter is bad but not that bad!
moomin wrote 12 hours 30 min ago:
Not Australian, married to an Aussie. I think pokies are an
obscenity. And theyâre everywhere, they invade as many areas of
life as they can.
bitwize wrote 12 hours 35 min ago:
Poster I saw on a men's restroom wall in a restaurant in Brisbane:
Fly 1: Bet you I can run up this wall faster than you.
Fly 2: Bet you you cant.
They say Australians will bet on two flies running up a wall. If you
have a gambling problem, call this number yada yada yada.
Other poster from the same restaurant:
Win a trip for two to Las Vegas.
richardw wrote 12 hours 39 min ago:
Recent immigrant to Australia here. Love the place, but the power of
the gambling industry is alarming. Very interesting episode on the
link with sports, and increasing earnings:
URI [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2023/may/10...
satori99 wrote 12 hours 47 min ago:
NSW is home to the largest number of gambling machines anywhere
outside of Nevada.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_in_Australia#New_Sout...
jimkoen wrote 14 hours 14 min ago:
I'm not even Australian, but thanks to friendlygeordies, even I know
gambling in AUS is a cartel:
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WDK5PByQgM
onychomys wrote 13 hours 19 min ago:
I'm not even Australian, but thanks to Wake In Fright, even I know
gambling in AUS is something guaranteed to strip you of your
civility and turn you into an outback maniac:
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mh7qZq0f_w
mock-possum wrote 14 hours 43 min ago:
âPokiesâ appears to be Australian slang for âvideo poker
machinesâ
andrewstuart wrote 13 hours 12 min ago:
One armed bandits.
AndrewOMartin wrote 6 hours 40 min ago:
I used to think this was just a cool name, but now I know it's
because they take your money.
kristofferR wrote 14 hours 28 min ago:
Yeah, I was sorely disappointed, that's not what I associate with
pokies at all.
klyrs wrote 11 hours 48 min ago:
My dad spent a few years in the pokey, I experienced relief on
learning this australiaism.
mikeInAlaska wrote 13 hours 22 min ago:
And then all this talk about "NSW"
nozzlegear wrote 12 hours 18 min ago:
Yeah, not nearly as titillating as it seemed.
nicolas_t wrote 14 hours 16 min ago:
yeah I somehow read that as pocky and was confused for a bit.
arduanika wrote 9 hours 52 min ago:
Agreed that wouldn't make any sense. You can always bet on the
joy of pocky!
Pannoniae wrote 14 hours 40 min ago:
small addition: not just for video poker, it's slang for any slot
machine.
kyteland wrote 12 hours 33 min ago:
pokies = slot machines
cardies = video poker
DIR <- back to front page