
Fingerprint coding may hold key to controlled gambling - J3L2404
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/fingerprint-coding-may-hold-key-to-controlled-gambling-20101211-18thx.html
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pier0
Like the governments care about problems gamblers. If they did they would
close lotteries and scratchcards operations and liberalize sports betting.

Instead they want to tell people where to spend (lose) their money, while
pretending they care.

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hugh3
In this case it's not about what "the government" wants. It's about what a
couple of key independent members of parliament who just happen to be holding
the balance of power want.

Lotteries actually aren't such a big problem as far as gambling addiction
goes. Nobody ever "accidentally" goes and loses half their week's pay by
playing the lottery, because the act of buying the ticket is so separated from
the act of finding out you lost. But the poker machine sits there playing
music and lulling you into a trance while it slowly empties your wallet.

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gojomo
Interesting. This could be extended to connect to your credit report or even a
realtime indicator of your net worth.

A fool and his money are soon parted, of course, but when the fool is someone
who's dependent on government largesse or already has a negative net worth,
and the institution tempting him into further negative-expectation games is
wealthy, intelligent and sophisticated about manipulating human biases, the
transaction is unseemly and has negative externalities for society.

I would rather there be net-worth 'accreditation' for gamblers and other
players of guaranteed negative-expectation games than for plausibly positive-
expectation private investing.

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J3L2404
<Academics have long said that people gambling on poker machines can't make
rational buying decisions>

While probably true, its just another example of the nanny nation making it
easy to have no responsibility. I like to think this wouldn't get ten feet in
the states, but I'm not so sure.

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hugh3
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But on the other hand, Australia is generally
much more libertarian about gambling than the US is.

If you want to play a poker machine in the US, you've gotta go to Nevada (or
Atlantic City, or an Indian casino, or a couple of other places). If you want
to play one in Australia, just pop down to your local pub and they'll have a
room full of them. There's also a casino (though only one) in every major
city. And betting on horses is pretty much compulsory.

I don't like the idea of this law, but I do think it would be nice if people
who have a serious problem with gambling could ban themselves from using poker
machines _somehow_.

