Australian Club and Gaming Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Australian Club and Gaming Management - Essay Example Throughout the country, governments not only operate lotteries, but they also maintain and sponsor many other forms of gambling. The lottery industry alone accounted for total spending at the consumer level of approximately $80 billion in 1993 (CALDWELL, G. T. 1994). Basically, Gambling as a form of recreation in Australia has become a national and very divisive issue. As state governments rely more on gambling for revenue-up to 15 percent of the state revenue in Victoria-unease in the community has grown over compulsive gambling and its social effects. In South Australia, the No Pokies Party elected Nick Xenophon to the upper house on an anti- gambling ticket in the last state election; in Victoria, the Baptist minister and social activist Tim Costello (the polar opposite brother of the Federal Coalition Government Treasurer and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Peter) has conducted a long campaign against Premier Kennett's gambling fixations (Kennett lost government in 1999). Costello sees gambling as the very antithesis of the "spirit of Victoria," as it is touted, and believes the avalanche of gambling with the Internet, TABs (totalisator agency board betting shops) and pokies is tearing at the social fabric of the nation. As the Canadian social critic and theorist John Ralston Saul frequently points out, gambling is the last refuge of governments that have lost social consensus and the capacity to raise revenue for the common good. It is the sign of a nation in decay. (Interview of Costello April 23, 2000; John Ralston Saul, 1997) Main Body Since the early 1990s, there has been a marked increase in state sponsorship of all types of gambling. Some of these gambling activities include casino gambling, video poker, offtrack betting, keno, video lottery, and riverboat gambling. The rationale behind the introduction of all these new types of gambling ventures is the same as the one that was used to legitimize the lottery: The ever-increasing need for more state revenue more than supersedes any reservations about the appropriateness of sponsoring additional forms of gambling. Obviously, the gamble here is that the public not only will tolerate but will participate in these additional forms of gambling. The Australian nation spends $100 billion per year on gambling; it sucks off enormous sums from all areas of the economy and reduces funding which could be employed in the capital-starved public sector. In 1999, according to the December report of the Productivity Commission to the Howard government, gamblers lose more than $12 billion-or $886 per adult-a year and even the Coalition parties now want to call a halt to the spread of gambling further in Australian society. In 1998, 80 percent of Australians engaged in some form of gambling. In casinos on the Yarra (Melbourne), the Torrens (Adelaide), and the Derwent (Hobart), as well as in thousands of clubs and pubs and in the ubiquitous TABs, Australians are fixated on recreational gambling as part of their national birthright. These venues are touted as fun for all; in Victoria, where the state reaps a massive $600 million per