Gambling with people's lives
The "kind Uncle George" image of the Tattersalls logo belies the truth. An internal document leaked from Tattersalls' marketing division confirms the exploitative nature of this, Australia's richest private company.
Tattersalls is revealed to be a conscious predator upon a small proportion of vulnerable Victorians who suffer gambling problems.
The leaked document, from a whistleblower and reported on ABC TV's Four Corners on Monday night, details who loses on Tatts poker machines and how much they lose. It shows that Tattersalls claims to care about "problem gamblers" and the community are nothing more than selfinterested cant.
The data has been gathered from the "Tatts Pokies Advantage Program". The program is a planned cardbased loyalty membership scheme. It was tested across 13 Tattersalls poker machine venues in eastern Melbourne in 2002.
Members' behaviour was "tracked" when they used their cards on poker machines in any of the venues. It was then analysed systematically. And the results are
football boots sale damning.
In Tattersalls' own words, "(we) derive enormous value" 57 per cent of revenue "from a very small group of customers". This group is the 15 per cent who lose "$100 plus per visit".
What does this mean in dollar figures for Victorians? We know that fewer than 40 per cent of adults use poker machines over the course of a year. Therefore, using Tattersalls' figures, we can say that 6 per cent of Victorians (40 per cent of the 15 per cent or about 223,000 people) account for 57 per
nike mercurial football boots cent of total losses.
That is, about 223,000 Victorians lose $1330 million (57 per cent of $2.33 billion last year). This comes to a staggering average of about $6000 each a year.
We also know that losses in some worseoff communities are much greater than the average. For example, average losses in the City of Maribyrnong in 200203 were $1085 an adult, compared with the state average of $628. Applying Tattersalls' data, this means 6 per cent of adults in Maribyrnong could be losing more than $10,000 a year each on poker machines.
The arithmetic is simple. The consequences are severe. Losses of this magnitude cannot but cause harm: to individuals, families, communities and local economies. Harm like this is multiplied in poorer communities where people can least afford to lose.
What this document contains is evidence that the revenues of this business rely on problematic gambling. Tattersalls knows this full well, as does Tabcorp.
In fact the Tattersalls document also reveals that 34 per cent of customers who lose more than $50 a visit "contribute over 82 per cent of revenue". Without shame the document identifies this group which includes the $100plus group as its primary target market. demographic, behaviours, attitudes and psychographics displayed. Once this is understood, we will know how best to market to these groups and influence their decisions to make Tatts Pokies venues preferred destinations."
The data shows that members of the $100plus group spend an average of 153 minutes "playtime" each visit. They visit more than one venue more than once a month. Sixtysix per cent of losses come from women. Users between the ages of 46 and 55 "provide the greatest value to the business", the document says.
The data cries out "problem gambling". To target this group represents unconscionable conduct. Yet this conduct has been made possible and legal by state legislation.
Moreover the Bracks Government is now, by all accounts, negotiating an extension of Tattersalls' and Tabcorp's licences to print money to beyond 2020.
This leak comes on top of the infamous Barrington Report, commissioned by Tattersalls in response to the fall in poker machine revenue after smoking bans were introduced in 2002. It
football boots sale identified ways for Tattersalls to use the vulnerability of heavy losers to increase its revenue.
Tattersalls disowned the Barrington Report in the wave of negative publicity that followed its exposure. But the company cannot disown this new leak. It comes right from the heart of the organisation.
This means also that the Bracks Government cannot hide from the truth. Nor can it continue to bluff by trying to trumpet what it does to help problem gamblers.
The Government's partners in crime, Tattersalls and Tabcorp, cause serious and continuing harm by targetmarketing heavy losers. This is the real problem. It must be attacked at its source.
There must be an open and independent judicial inquiry into the poker machine industry in Victoria. Only an inquiry that is independent of the Government will do. Why? Precisely because the Government's fingers are also in the pockets of vulnerable Victorians.
Anne O'Casey teaches in the faculty of arts, and James Doughney is senior researcher in work and economic policy, at Victoria University.
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