An email to 2GB’s Luke Grant
G’day Luke. Welcome to 2GB. We last spoke when you were in Melbourne and an ash cloud had grounded my flight…good to hear you again.
Anyway, online gambling, you’re absolutely right. It’s hypocritical of the government to be so opposed to poker machines while embracing online gambling which, as we all know, is exactly where folks will go if the pokies no longer satisfy their gambling urges.
Why doesn’t Wilkie ever talk about online gambling? I dare say that, if you can call gambling a problem (I don’t, I call it a choice), it’s a bigger problem than pokies. At least with pokies, you have to hand the machine your cash, whereas online, it’s your credit card number and it doesn’t hurt until the statement arrives and you realise you’ll be paying it back for years.
I suppose though, if the government are going to tax it, that might just get Wayne Swan his promised surplus.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra