This is a massive problem. I live a few kilometres from Sandown Park (a major racing venue). It's an area that has a lot of people on low incomes. There isn't a pub or similar venue within five kilometres that doesn't have a room filled with these infernal gambling machines. I know of six venues, and there are probably more that I haven't seen yet. Hawthorn's venue is a bit further away from my home, but is within five kilometres of Sandown Park. If it was a posh suburb, there wouldn't be so many venues and so many gambling machines.
The big failing is that local councils do not have the right to collect their share of revenue from gambling machines. Local councils cannot impose taxes on them, and local councils cannot limit the number of gambling machines in their jurisdiction. This is wrong.
That's what I call them: gambling machines, not the euphemistic "gaming machines". To me, a gaming machine is a high-performance personal computer that is used for playing computer games. Anyone who calls the gambling machines "gaming machines" must therefore be corrected at every opportunity.
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