Poker Machine Reform Research Paper

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The new poker machine reform will bring about a new limit to how problem gamblers will be spending their money and teaching them how to give up theirs destructive habits. Australia has introduced a new reform, which will push the betting limit to one dollar, which will make it harder for gamblers to lose massive amounts of money while using poker machines. This has caused a mass of positive feedback which talks about the benefits and how this will slowly lead to a time where all machines will be banned. But many people claim that in these types of situations the government should not interfere and should let the citizens make their own choices. And the huge corporations behind poker machines are in uproar over the loss of profit that they will …show more content…

The first text providing their side to the betting limit is Ron Tandberg with a political cartoon published in The Age on the 15th of October 2011. With this political cartoon Tandberg explores the true nature of the gamblers representatives, that the only aim that these people have is to take all the money they can and with the new limit they won't be able to fill that objective. In contrast to the other two texts, this one is the most forward with its objective, Tandberg makes it clear that he is fully for the new reform. With the aspects of his cartoon including the representation of the gambler representative, with his huge stomach, over exaggerated mouth and his angry eyebrows. This cartoon aims to shed negative light onto the representative and to explain to the reader that these people only care about their greed and not the well being of the people behind them on the poker machines. This text shows the gambling corporations in the most negative light and highlights the reason why these people have not accepted the new reform, because they are horrified at the notion that they won't be able to trick these people out of all their money, 'do you realise how long it would take for a person to lose their life savings?' They don't care for the people like they claim they only care for the change in their …show more content…

The second text provided is a newspaper article written by Jennifer Crawley in the Hobart mercury published on the 11 May 2012, concerning the dangers of poker machines and the addiction that plagues most gamblers. This article aims to push most of the blame onto the gamblers association behind poker machines, telling the story of an ex-gambler which has battled his addiction since he was 15 years old. This text a new approach to this new reform by pulling the real experiences for addicts into the argument, many focus on the profit and the changes the reform will take into action but Crawley zooms into the personal experience may go through while battling addiction. Crawley aims for her article to be objective like the other two provided but with her tone and space dedicated to the positives of the reform it is clear that Crawley supports and is an advocate for the new betting limit. She puts the gamblers in the position of the victim, constructing their persona that of a person who needs help to be lead out of the hole they have dug themselves in. She leads the blame of these peoples conditions to the corporations that control the poker machines, 'it was the mesmerising nature of the poker machines that made them intoxicating' she rights of the alluring nature of the machines that made them irresistible for gamblers. While Crawly does focus on the emotional strugle the gambling

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