Cashless gaming is intended to limit the losses of people with gambling problems, but reform advocates say the first trial did not include crucial harm reduction measures.
  • In short: One of the first cashless gaming trials in NSW found the technology made little difference to the behaviour of gamblers.
  • The Wests New Lambton trial has received criticism from gambling reform advocates, who say it did not include a card with binding and default limits.
  • What’s next?: The Independent Panel on Gaming Reform will provide findings from an expanded statewide cashless gaming trial.
  • No1
    4·
    7 months ago

    I know that the whole cashless gaming is supposedly targeting tax cheats blah blah,.

    But the whole cashless thing is making me twitch.

    You are further distancing money from a physical/logical good to an abstract thing that doesn’t really mean anything.

    The move away from cash to cashless is having the same effect.

    Paying $15 when you only have a $20 in your wallet to last you to payday is a lot different to just tapping your card for those new shoes, or another $500 of ‘points’ to flush through a pokie.

    idk, maybe I’m an old guy barking at the moon, but something feels really off. I think I’m going to pull out $500 in cash, and use that to pay for everything and see if it changes my perspective.

    • Ilandar
      5·
      7 months ago

      idk, maybe I’m an old guy barking at the moon, but something feels really off. I think I’m going to pull out $500 in cash, and use that to pay for everything and see if it changes my perspective.

      I don’t think you’re old fashioned at all. Young people concerned about their finances are still using the “envelope” trick even today because it works. I think the problem in this pokies example is the existence of a serious addictive behaviour so rational thought is not being utilised in the same way it would be it you or I were to budget with cash normally.

    • ephemeral_gibbon
      3·
      7 months ago

      Nah, get rid of cash for the pokies. It alone won’t help with harm reduction but the pokies are one of the most common ways to launder money in this country. People use the resources taxes buy and should be paying their fair share.

      We also need cashless gaming cards with default and settable hard limits with restrictions on when you can change it to help combat the addictions.

      • No1
        1·
        7 months ago

        Yeah, I get it.

        But I reckon the real tax cheats.- sorry, I mean tax minimisation! - aren’t the ones putting cash through pokies. They are using companies, discretionary trusts etc and various tax jurisdictions to avoid -oops! I mean minimise!- tax.

        Whatever happened as a result of the Pandora Papers? Nothing. Because it’s basically all legal and the way the rich evade - oops! I mean minimise!- tax.

        • ephemeral_gibbon
          2·
          7 months ago

          Oh absolutely, but an improvement is still good. Pokies are absolutely shit and should be ripped out, but it’ll be harder to get that to happen.