The Chaser Report - RIP the VIP Lounge

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Dom and Charles dissect the changes (or lack of) to gambling laws around NSW and Victoria, and contemplate getting into the business of money laundering. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and, Charles. And Dom, you're looking very glum. Bet. What? What? I'm trying to double or nothing on you, Charles.

What? I'm trying to talk about pokey reform today. Oh, right. And I was trying to introduce that with the concept that you were a human pokey, because I've just been thinking about pokies for the past few hours. And once you do that, everyone looks like, I don't know, the King of the Nile in your case or some other poker machine. It's sort that I occasionally used to play back in my misspent youth.

I was very bored at a pub. But in the state of Victoria, it sounds as though Dan Andrews is actually going to try and do something about the scourge of the one-hour bandit. New South Wales is sweeping the problem under the carpet. For more, stick with us. So Charles Meyer, My daughter's learning to read at the moment.

I'm very proud of it. She's doing really well. And she said to me the other day, Dadda, what's a VIP? A VIP. Oh, and she said, yeah, it says on the side of that building, VIP. And I was going, oh, God, where do I start with this one? Well, and if you're not from New South Wales, you probably won't know this either. What happened in New South Wales was that when every fucking pub got a Pokey Lounge in it,

and they simply went open slather on, people betting their savings away in the same place where they take, you know, where they drink, reducing their inhibitions. their ATMs. Yes. The way to solve that would be to not have them say gaming lounge or pokies on the or casino. I think it wasn't casino? Card Ceno, yes.

That's right. It was too. They wanted a euphemism. And I said they had things like VIP lounge is the most common. Right. And that was a rule, wasn't it? You're not allowed to call it what it is. Because that would trigger it like because gamblers, the thinking obviously was that

gamblers would walk past. a gaming lounge that was called VIP lounge. I just think, well, I don't want to go there. Well, also, I've ruined my life. I'm a shell of a human. I'm not a VIP. There's no way I'm welcome in that lounge. And then, of course, they all display.

These days, these amazing, expensive signs. I walked past them on the way down here today near our office. And they've got these very expensive animations and, like, coins swive around, like full-on kind of 3D rendered graphics. And he's going, how much fucking money are these places making that this tiny pub you have this giant basically stadium sign out the front with like dragons swirling around and so on. So they won't be allowed to have gold coins or dragons or any of that shit.

But I actually know a bit of the sort of marketing science behind this, which is that by far the best customers of gaming loungers are ones that spend all their money. Yeah, of course. Like literally their entire fortune and they go completely broke, right? Well, of course they're the best customers. But the whole thing is those sort of. of people, like, are actually problem gamblers.

Like, they're an actual type of person. They're a category. Yeah. And the one thing that problem gamblers can't deal with very well is, is seeing triggers. Like, I once heard this amazing interview with this problem gambler who said, well, I can totally resist not gambling until I see a sign and then I just can't go past it. And he said, it was an ABC radio interview. And he said, so on my way here, I had to plot out my route to make sure I didn't walk past any pokey lounge.

That's extraordinary. Okay, well, perhaps I'm wrong, because my thought was that by changing the name, that wouldn't do anything at all, because everyone still knew what it was. You're baffling five-year-olds. My daughter, not only don't have to explain to her, oh, it's an initialisation, it's not a VIP, it's a very important person. It's not that. It's a place of sad people go to blow their wages. That's quite hard to explain to a five-year-old. and happy people go to win their wages.

Sure. Yeah, I remember. I mean, this is the whole thing. It's a very one-sided debate, Dom, because everyone covers the losers. But what about all the people who, you know, go in there and then walk out with a small fortune? Well, as I remember, the first time I ever played a dollar machine, there were machines that have a $1 minimum.

That was when I was a bit pissed and had, I don't know, 50 bucks or something that I really shouldn't have put into a pokey. And there was a character on this pokey called W. Winbigs and he had like bags of money. And you're kind of going, hang on, he's doing well out of this. I'm not. My $50, I think, went in about 10 minutes or less. None of the sort of dreary coverage that you see on the ABC or in the Fairfax papers

ever does a profile on what was his name. W. Whitbig. Mr. Winbigs. Well, don't they pay, I think it's somewhere between 83% and 87% of what's put in. So a lot of people do make money out of the pokies, except for the next time. when they think it's an easy way to make money and then they go back. So anyway, so this is the thing.

So Chris Mins in New South Wales has decided that even that is not far enough. It's not going far enough to have all these pokey lounges on every fucking corner of every suburb. Yes. Being called VIP Lounge or prosperity salon or whatever the other things are that they're called.

There's going to be no signage, no signage whatsoever. It's like tobacco. Well, but isn't every second convenience store now called a tobacco station in Sydney? That's because there's a little. loophole where you can use the word tobacco. Well, I'm fascinated to know what the loophole is going to be that the poking land is used

because they're all about the loopholes. It'll be, they'll now go to being called something like Mr. Winbigs' residence. Yeah, that's right. And there's a whole thing where, remember that with the smoking rules where you couldn't smoke in an indoor area? Yeah. So they put a little sliver of open airs and every pokey lounge with Alfresco. There is not a law that the Australian hotels are so.

has not seen and worked out. They're the sort of PWC of legislation. Except for the accountability. So anyway, so Chris Means is bringing this change in. And from what you're saying, this problem gambler you heard interview might benefit because if somehow this person can forget that every single pub in New South Wales has pokies in them,

except for one or two, and the ones that don't advertise it, because it's such a novelty. Like the East Sydney Hotel, Russell Crowe's local, doesn't have pokies in it. And there's a sign saying, like, no, pokies in it. You think there's a risk that problem gamblers will see the word pokies when it says no pokies and go in there.

And trash the joint. So, well, if they can forget that anywhere that's a pub has pokies, then they'll probably do well. But what this makes me think, though, is that Chris Means is completely sweeping the issue under the carpet. Because the rest of us will go past pubs. We'll forget that pokies are there. We'll forget that problem gamblers are a thing.

The problem gamblers will just be able to sneak in the back. There'll be no signage. There'll be no shame, right? So they're just sort of sneaking. Because Chris Means, let's not forget, he was the candidate that did not want pokey reform. Dornick Perratae, the Liberal Premier, promised to bring in the cashless gaming card, if re-elected mandatory, didn't win. And Chris Means' model was a trial of 500 pokies. Yes, which was very funny.

Like in terms of all the policies that could possibly ever work, this one was instantly the world's shittest idea, wasn't it? Because they said what we'll do is we'll do a trial of 500 pokey's that don't work as well or something. No, they're cashless, right? Cashless gaming cards, yeah. And it was like, okay, so why won't people go to the machine next to the one that's the cashless one? And just use that one instead. And which venue is going to agree to be the pilot for this harder to gamble on pokies? Well, I know a venue that could, Charles.

Oh, yeah. The Randwick Labor Club. It's now called the Ranwick Club. They've dropped Labor from the name. I think Ranwick's too posh now. But Labor, and certainly Labor-associated, registered clubs actually exist. So Labor kind of has skin in this game. Yes.

They may still operate Puckies in the SEC. You have to realize, like, in all the commentary about, because the Fairfax papers have been going on all day about, well, you know, will men's have to cave to this? Because there's a whole lot of problems with only one state doing it, the next state, not doing it. First one being, so if you're a money launderer, Having a easy access to tons of gaming machines is a really good thing.

Oh, it's wonderful. It's very efficient. Like, it's been boom time for money launders in the last 20 years. Well, it's been absolutely extraordinary. It's a brilliant way to do it. And you're very happy to pay. Like, if you get the 80, these people would be gambling enough to actually get to see if the 86% thing or whatever it is is true. Yes.

And they're happy to pay. That's cheap to pay 14%. Oh, absolutely. So there's concerns that all that, those money launderers, will flock across the borders. No, it's going to be a bonanza for New South Wales when this happens. So there's a problem there. But so there's all these sort of thing of will Minns now cave

and have to do actually something about it? But there's an assumption there that Menz wants to do something about it. Sure, which there's no evidence of. There's no evidence at all. The whole trial of the 500 machines is. That's obviously going to fucking work. Having a card that is linked to, you don't need to do a trial sometimes. A card that is linked to your actual ID that tracks what you put through pokies is going to stop money laundering.

You don't need to try to test it out. What's the point of the test? Well, as I said at the time, I wonder whether we need a murder law trial. Oh, yes. Before we implement a law against murder. Cashless murder. Yeah, because the thing is, like, How do we know that outlawing murder works, right?

That's so true. It's so true. But we should have like half the state where murders outlawed, half the state where it's not outlawed, and see what happens. But also, Charles, I can tell you without having to do a trial that if you had a law that every, in order to use a knife or a gun to murder somebody, you had to log in to the knife or the gun, it would have less murders.

Or at least you did other means. I'd drop a, I don't know, a safe on your head or something. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. It's just not that complicated. These are the sort of complications, Dom, that we're going to learn about during the cashless card trial. Well, you could do that. Or you could have more guts, like Victorian Premier Dan Andrews.

Now, admittedly, there's not nearly as many pokey's in Victoria anyway. They've been more conservative to begin with. But they have put through a bunch of changes. And presumably this somehow advantages Crown Casillas. Oh, we'll get to that. You've already seen the loop up. Okay, so what's happening in Victoria, and this is admirable, let's be really clear. A mandatory closing hour, slower spin times, like it takes longer to lose all your money.

Smaller spending limits. There's also going to be load up limits so you can't put in more than a hundred bucks at a time, so you've got to keep refilling it. It's boring. Yeah, that's good. And the laundry takes more time. It's like slower to launder. Yeah, yeah.

And you have a carded place, so you've got to have the registered thing. But also, there's going to be mandatory. closures between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m. You can't. I mean, admittedly, who the fuck is gambling at that time other than money launders and problem gamblers? But yeah, so between 4 and 10, you don't be able to, it's outrageous. There's no pokey's at 6.30 a.m. in whole of Victoria, except at Grand Casino. Yeah. Grand Casino. And how much does Cran Casino give to Dan Andrews each year in political donations? Oh, how dare you? How dare you suggest that Dan Andrews is determined to do something.

Before you go on, I do want to put the counterfactual to you and just sort of go. Look, I think Dan Andrews has gone too far because, sure, okay, you're going to strip away the, you know, the organised crime money launderers, which is a huge problem, especially in Victoria. Well, it's going to be very inconvenient for the small businesses that run money laundering. But what about the mum and dad money laundering? See, no one ever thinks of the mum. and dad money launders. Look, just these, these honest Australians, trying to put their kids through a private school.

Just trying to launder, you know, enough to make ends meet, you know, to do an LD run. It's very expensive the cost of living these days. I mean, it's not like the government's helped. They've already put one foot in their throat, you know that giant sting where they hacked into all those Anom messages and surveilled all the cream is doing the money laundering. They were already invading their privacy. Yes. Just because they thought they were part of organised crime, which they absolutely were,

the government thought they could read their messages, and they put in this fake app to do so. But there is another sort of corollary from this whole thing, which I think is a little bit worrying and where we should sort of pause for thought before we ban gambling. Sure. Which is, in some ways, like, isn't the point about Dan Andrews that he's essentially, he's got no opposition? That's right. But not only has the Victorian Liberal Party just gone off into a sort of crazy far-right Christian. Yes, so they're basically bad.

So he's actually allowed to do policy that he wants to do, presumably. But also, I think the Greens have also imploded down there over trans issues. So Dan Andrews is sort of essentially Premier for Life. And does this not give a bad signal to democracy? Yes. that he starts him lamenting good laws. He should be having more fun. Where are the Bunga Bunga parties?

Yes. I mean, where are the extremely dubious moral code breaches by Dan Andrews? Maybe they're coming soon. Because this is the thin end of the wedge. Like if suddenly he starts making all these decisions which actually help people, even though he's not being democratically held accountable at all. I see what you're saying. Yeah, it's a bad model.

Then we will suddenly go. well, that's how, let's dismantle democracy because the Dan Andrews' dictatorship model is a better model. Well, I mean, maybe if Chris Minns, I don't know that if Chris Minn's had no opposition, he would actually ban gambling. I'm far to be convinced on that point. No, no, you've got to bear in mind also.

Well, he'd have to run a trial on it. He'd have to run a trial. Yeah, run a trial on, just democracy itself. Yeah, yeah. But in W.A., as is established by a very ironic, heavy-handed sarcasm chaser piece once when Craig went to visit the W.A., the land without pokey's. W.A. doesn't even have these fucking things.

Like, they don't have pokies in Western Australia, except in casinos. The gambling in W.A. is done with mining. You just, it's a much more high tax game. But if you win, you really win big. I think W.N. Big was basically modered on Lang Hancock. It looked a lot like him. See, I always thought from my, you know, trips to Perth was the reason why they didn't have any VIP loungers over there.

Oh. was because nobody is a VOP. Like they're all Bogan. That's probably fair. I could have called it a Bogan Lounge. Bogan Lounge. Bogan Lounge. Yes.

Lovely. So that's what's going on in New South Wales. And he has done one change. This is actually one substantial change of them the signage. Oh, yeah. Chris means he's vowed, this is from the Guardian. He's vowed to reduce the number of pokey's in the States. There's no actual policy.

Just a general intention. Oh, just a vow. Doesn't want political donations from clubs with gaming operations. And this is actually. interesting. Do you know what the limit is? So in Victoria, they've reduced it from $1,000 you can put in the pocket. It wants to 100. I yeah. You know the limit is as of 1 July in New South Wales? The maximum you can put it going to be. So it's now 500. You can put 500 bucks. You can put 500 bucks in. Into a pokey as of 1 July. Right. Before that, it was

$5,000 in one go. You could launder $5,000, do one spin and then take it out again in fresh notes. That's how easy it was to launder money. Actually, why didn't get in on that? this is what I'm saying. Why didn't we get on that before? The mum and dad money launders. We could have been those mums and dads. Yes. God, it's a lot easier than every handed sarcasm and satire about the government every single day.

Oh, it could have been W. Winbig. You know what? I'm going to go to that VIP lounge down the road and... While you still can. Yeah. Get on it. There's amazing spinning coins outside. They're pretty much guarantees you'll win.

The fact that they've been able to put in a $100,000 sign out the front of the place. You're bound to win, Charles. Why don't you put all that? the company money in it as well. What company money? That's a good point. Our news from Road with part of the iconoclast Network. Why don't you listen to another episode? Double or nothing. Yeah. Yeah. And again.