The gaming industry is going through considerable self-examination currently and there is a deal of breast-beating about addiction and the evils thereof. The cynic might condemn it all as media-appeasing window-dressing; whether genuine remorse or crocodile’s tears, the efforts to at least appear concerned are to be applauded.
But in reality, interrupting play with dire warnings, labelling every TV ad with "play responsibly" and sticking addiction advice contact numbers to machines, is not going to stop the determined and dedicated addict.
It has all of the well-intentioned but ultimately doomed prognosis of "public education", proposed for those who habitually drop litter, or don’t clean up their dog's mess or that park in disabled spots when they are perfectly fit. "Education" doesn’t work and by the time you have discovered that, the footpaths are filthy and the disabled don’t use supermarkets because they have become inaccessible.
Habitual gamblers – infinitesimally tiny though the percentage of them among regular players may be – often don’t realise that they have a problem, or don’t want to be "cured" or are simply impenetrable to sense.
None of that should obviate the industry’s right to cater for the other 99.8 per cent of players without having legislative handcuffs imposed upon them.
It is a hot topic all over the world, and has as many diverse attitudes as there are countries debating the issue. Australia even experimented with pre-commitment, getting the player to limit the amount he is prepared to lose and the game cutting out once he’s reached the limit. It failed.
Russia confined its casinos to a handful of strategic regions, but who wants to go to Siberia to play a slot machine? Belgium doesn’t allow AWP machines but it permits the bingo table, the most pernicious gambling device of them all. The Netherlands is a curious and bizarre mix of confused thinking – it obsesses about protecting the public from compulsive gambling but permits smoking pot in pubs while it bans tobacco. Austria has a system of membership to entitle folk to enter an arcade.
In short: you won’t stop people gambling if they are really determined to, no more than the rules in chemist shops ban the sale of three packets of aspirin at one time. You can guide, advise, "educate" and even hector gamblers, but short of stopping them entirely, you have no certainty of controlling them and if you stop them entirely you have to stop everyone and that’s simply not fair.
It may be that there’s a large slice of "paying lip service" to the measures undertaken by the industry to help the addict, but it can only succeed up to a point; you cannot impose self-control.
