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Hi guys, thank you for tuning into Tennis for Nurses. This week's episode around gambling does have some triggering conversations, but because there was so much information disseminated by these two remarkable women, Kat and Zen, we are going to do a Part A and we will then be doing a Part B because you need to hear what they had to say about gambling and the concerns around gambling
in Australia. So this week will drop Part A and next week will drop Part B. Hi, my name's beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for Nurses.
I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity to.
Be, so I hit it and parked it for Nellie four years. We always have free will, we always get to choose.
We are autonomous.
Hi everyone, thank you for tuning back into Tennis for Nurses. I'm actually really excited today to chat with two amazing women who are trying to change and bring to light the issues around gambling here in Australia. And it's a little bit of a forgotten addiction. It doesn't get the
media attention that say alcohol or drugs do. However, the impact in Australia is huge with what gambling does to families, to people the community, and I really just wanted to touch on this form of addiction, just to bring it to light a little bit because there's so many people that do have issues in this space and I just felt it was important that we talk about it as well.
So good morning Zen, Good morning Kate. How are you both? Very well? Thank you So Zen, We'll start with you. Han.
Can you give us a little bit of background on you, what you do, how you help Turning Point and also how you help the people that come to you guys.
So, I am a social worker. I work as counseling role at Turning Point. Turning Point is a Melbourne based addiction treatment, research and education service which is founded in nineteen ninety four. It's now part of Eastern Health and covers quite a broad gamut of treatment modalities and programs
across Melbourne and the Eastern Suburbs. More particularly, we have a variety of different services designed to support individuals who are seeking help around gambling harm, including kind of online services, websites, web chats and also telephone services as well.
So your background is social work, Yeah, so you've done all your study and what made you decide to segue into this space.
I did my initial placement at Turning Point in twenty twenty. I had always been interested in alcohol and drug treatment services, as I'd studied it in my undergraduate degree as well, and during my placement obviously we'd actually did a lot of education around gambling harm and Kate we actually watched a talk of yours, which in twenty twenty was empowering to hear someone talk about gambling in such an honest and raw way and also just really challenging this very
normalized society. Since twenty twenty, it has become something I'm very passionate about, and as far as the work we do here, it is something that part of me is like, I can never see myself doing anything else because it is just a really amazing space to work, and in the people we work with us so incredibly strong and brings so much to the work we.
Do doing COVID.
Then, did you with the huge increase in alcohol consumption because of COVID, did you guys find that there was also then a spike in gambling.
There was a very decided spiking gambling, particularly with sports betting. Obviously, things like the Pokey's. There was a big drop off in people attending venues. It's actually been interesting talking to clients since COVID where they've said, oh, twenty twenty twenty twenty one, particularly in Melbourne, that was great. I couldn't
go to the pokies. That was the longest period I had when I wasn't playing the pokies, and for a lot of people that was actually important for them to recognize that they could live without going to the venue. On the flip side of that, however, we saw a very large uptick in particularly younger men on sports betting apps. So it was a bit of a double edged sword in terms of the harms both reduction and increase that we were seeing across a very broad spectrum of the population.
Do you find that it's more women that do the pokies and more men that do the apps or you just find it's the board for both.
I would definitely say with the apps we do get a larger presentation of younger men the pokeys. I think anecdotally, depending on who you speak to, we could say that we have maybe seventy thirty sixty forty kind of split male female. But yeah, I definitely say for a lot of the people we speak to when it comes to the pokys, I find that a lot of people I speak to myself where they are women that kind of thirties through to sixties range, particularly women who are winding
down careers entering retirement. The pokys have become something that stands in and fills in that space. There's also a very common theme for a lot of people just around having a place where they can escape the stresses of day to day life, and the pokeys for some people do fill that space, and it can be a sort of quite a big release from what's going on in the data day for busy working parents and things like that.
Yeah, So what is the definition of a gambling addiction?
I mean, there are different ways to define addiction. Generally, with gambling addiction, for a lot of people, it is when the harm for gambling is starting to impact multiple facets of their lives. You know, the most obvious is the financial impact, but we can also look at people losing relationships, family breakdown. For some people, there can be
very serious legal and employment consequences. We have clients we've worked with who have in some instance has gone to the extent where they've stolen money from employers and have ended up in prison as a result of that. So really it's when the gambling becomes something that is all dominating in someone's life, and for a lot of people that sneaks up on them and it can feel very sudden.
There can be that steady progression from going to the Pokey's once a month with some friends to it being a daily ritual of multiple hours and starting to take over for their lives.
Do they tend to always go to the same outlet if it's Pokys?
It's interesting. I think that does very person to person. You will have people where they're very much this is my venue, this is where I'm going, this is very feel comfortable, I know the stuff, I get a free cup of tea, which a lot we can say about those kind of things. And then for others they will find that they're going to different areas of town. For whatever reason. A lot of people may feel quite shameful
being seen repeatedly in the same venue. For others, they may have exclusions in place in one venue and therefore they decide to go to a different venue. So it does vary, but routine and ritual is important for a large number of individuals who speak to so there is generally some consistency in where they are going to play the pokies.
Why is it you think we don't hear a lot about the gambling harm here in Australia. Is it because it's such a culture a thing, you know, like I hear about it because of what I do. But it's sort of something that's really I don't know, it's not really discussed.
It is such a not funny haha, but kind of ironic one that and Kate, I'm sure to degree. It's this thing that is so drenched into our society and is so heavily normalized, and yet we never want to be properly acknowledging it. And I think you know, there are so many different reasons for that. I mean, we can look at the amount governments receive in money from Pokey's and from venues from sports spanning advertising things like that.
I think we as a society want to see ourselves as this fun and jove your sports loving culture, but we're not really willing to properly investigate what that means yet, particularly when it comes to gambling. I'm in my late twenties. I have a lot of male friends and colleagues who have over the years said that, but they couldn't imagine watching sports without gambling. It's just the reality. This is what they do, and it's now a kind of lifeline
for them in terms of connections to other people. It's what they talk about, it's what they do, and the idea that you could engage in watching sports or even going down to the pub without engaging in some level of gambling seems quite foreign. So there's the government levels, there's the funding and the funding received from governments around that, and then there's also the cultural element of just not wanting to unpack something difficult, particularly when it's so normalized.
It's interesting.
My daughter does intelligence in America and she works for a law firm and as part of her work, people approach them to research thing on behalf of someone else, and she has recently done some research into and I used to think it was just nuts.
You can go.
Into a roadhouse get fuel or whatever, and there are pokeys in these states. I just assumed that they were all connected. But these ones that are in these service stations and things like that are actually individually owned made by a certain person. The people can watch what's happening in all the different service stations where people are punting or gambling, and if they win, they hit a jackpot or something, they'll shut that machine down so they never
get the win. Oh wow, but they'll take the money, but they never get the win. So there has been numerous lawsuits against it. But I just assumed that they're all connected, but they're not. So these are individually owned poky machines. And like she was saying, they're in areas where it's low socio and economic areas. It's people low wages, low incomes. They're trying to get a couple of extra dollars to feed their family whatever. They hit a jackpop
and never get paid for it. And she was horrified when she was reading what's going on. I mean, I can't even comprehend that someone would buy and support that as a means of an income. I just it blows my mind. But when she was looking into it, she just could not comprehend it. Whereas they're all linked, aren't they to some degree in each the state?
Is that correct? Do you know, Kate?
The individual venues, there's a couple of clubs in Canberra that own multiple venues, so all of those might be linked, but they're not necessarily all interlinked per state.
But they're not individually owned. No, these are owned by individuals.
Yeah.
The US regulations around the poke machines and also things like sports betting, it they vary so wildly from our own regulations. I think the US only introduced sports betting, something which is just such a massive part of our culture now relatively recently, and they've already seen massive harms as a result of that. But it is fascinating seeing how different countries manage the pokies, But I think Australia's really beating everyone else on those ones.
So did we develop was the online gambling platforms?
Are they Australian developed?
They're not necessarily Australia developed a lot of the online sports betting apps are like British companies, like their British book making companies, but the US had heavier legislation around them for a more extended period of time. Australia has always had legislation or regulation around the sports betting apps, but they have been here for longer than they have been in the US.
So how much money does the government make from gambling?
I think it's around twelve billion issue, it could be more. That was maybe two years ago, yeah, a year, yeah, and it increases each year.
The civilian losses per capita are the largest globally, with the bigger losers in the world when it comes to gambling, and it's tens of billions of dollars a year that Australians are losing in gambling. When you think of yeah, you think how small we are.
Billion dollars Australians are losing a year to gambling.
It jumped from twenty five billion. Oh my, the last project. That's how much harm is happening in Australia from gambling products. Hell, then does someone I mean, you've got your phone with you all the time. You know, it's hard enough when people stop drinking to try and avoid going into a bottle shop and it being delivered and that sort of thing. But you know, like your phone's with you all the time.
How do you then stop gambling if you have a harmful habit when your phone's with you all the time.
There are some things that are in place now so last year betstop, which is the National Self Exclusion Register for online gambling and sports batting was introduced. People can register themselves for various periods where they'll be excluded from all registered sports betting services in Australia. That means the services can't be setting them advertising material, it means they
can't open accounts. That's one thing that's in place. Tab has a program called tab Betcare which is a similar thing, so people can do that exclusion. For some people, they find it useful to put blockers in place as a service called gamban, which is a similar thing. People can't access gambling sites then through their phone or laptop. In saying that, however, these are services people have to engage with themselves, so there has to be that internal motivation.
People have to be at the point where they are ready to take that step, and that's not always an easy point for people to come to.
With any addiction.
It's really hard, whether it's drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling. To get to that point takes a lot of work absolutely so then when you're doing all you're counseling and talking with people that sort of thing and vicarious trauma can have a real.
Impact on a person.
How does turning point look after you as a social worker, and how do you look after you to make sure that you can show up every day and be the best version of you to help your clients.
How do you do that well?
Turning point as an organization within this area i'm in, there are things put in place in terms of we are forced to take breaks after we speak to people, so there are ten minutes after every client contact that we have that are built into our systems. But there's a lot of flexibility in terms of being able to take a step out of the office, go for a walk, grab a colleague, debrief with them, grab a supervisor debrief
with them. It's a very jovial atmosphere. That is we're encouraged to engage with everyone and prioritize our well being in ourselves. If we're in if we're just exhausted, we can't take another call. Okay, put yourself into self care, do what you need to do. That's absolutely fine. We're not being forced to push through and hit KPIs or objectives,
which is a really nice balance. And we also have a really fantastic team of supervisors, including individual supervisors and also group supervision, which is done on a monthly basis. We also have team meetings with all of the counselors so everyone can share systems, issues that need to be addressed, things like that. So it's a really collaborative, supportive space for myself personally, I'm a big advocate for people that can of getting out of the office and just walking
around for a while. It's been really useful making sure I have things in place that I can do every week, So routines around meal prepping, exercisings like that that help keep me balanced, ensuring that I'm not overloading my workdays, but that i still have fun things to look forward to, even if it's grabbing a coffee with a colleague during the day, just breaking things up, and also just acknowledging that we have sick leave and personally, for a reason,
take that leaf for yourself, look after yourself, prioritize your own well being. I've recently come back from ten days off so i could spend time with the family and it was a really refreshing thing. Yeah, so those little things, Yeah.
It's so great to hear that because the work you do is so important and we need people like you healthy and well so that you can help other people in our society. That really do need a hand, then, is there, and without breaking any confidentiality or anything like that, is there one story that's really stayed with you.
That's a really good question. I think it's maybe not one story, but I think one theme that always stays with me that actually I think ties it nicely to something I was Kate, I was watching your Rethink Addiction talk twenty twenty two when there was something you said in that that really links in what was sort of this theme, which is when you speak to someone on the gambling lines or on the gambling web chats, the level of shame that people are experiencing, and that stigma
can be so overwhelming and so often you'll be speaking to people, I think, particularly with some of the blokes, we speak to men who would not normally be letting themselves cry or feeling emotion to this level and all of their barriers are down and there is such a level of vulnerability and being able to sit with them in that space and hold them and then really emphasizing the element of addiction by design, encouraging them to acknowledge
that this is not a reflection on them. They're not weak, there's nothing wrong with them. It's not that they're unable
to make a change or just unable to stop. It's that this is a system which has been designed to keep them locked in, and there is a way they can break three of this, and there is support for them, but really just helping them understand that this is not a reflection on them and they are not defined by the gambling harm And it is something that always hits home with me with the gambling calls and the web chats, is just how damaging that stigma and shame is and
how important it is for us to help people challenge that and help them reground themselves and acknowledge that it's not them, it's a system and they can move past it and they can break out of that system.
I can firsthand talk about, you know, I had an issue with alcohol and the shame I felt around that and to this day still feel. You know, I've actually literally come from seeing my psychologists to come and talk to you guys, because I've recognized it's something I have to work through and deal with because at the end of the day, it's only society that's putting those boundaries
on me. I should be feeling really proud, like you should Kate that we've worked through things and it'll be a work for the rest of our lives.
I have no doubt. But that's okay.
That we should be really proud of ourselves for me not drinking, Kate not gambling, you know, So instead of feeling shame or being shamed, we should be celebrating our successes. And I think that's something we need to as Australians work on rather than shaming people for because let's face it, we're open about it. There's so many people that aren't open about it and are living, you know, these lives
where they're constantly and turmoil. And you know, you and I, for whatever reason, have been able to deal with our demons and get to the other side. But I think we do need to change the dialogue around shame and embarrassment because we're all just humans.
Yeah, especially in the gambling space, shame has been weaponized by the industry and that's something I didn't understand when I was experiencing it. I was like, why can't I do this normally like other people? And just as you're saying about alcohol, it's a normalized toxin. You know, gambling
spaces are toxic environments. And we've convinced ourselves that there's something wrong with us if we can't engage in it in a healthy way, Like it's just craziness when you can peel it back and understand, these are industries that have designed products and practices that attract and addict human beings.
And we weren't built for that. No.
You know, I noticed the other day that the pub where I live opposite us, the gambling rooms are open till four am. The rest of the pub shut down, but the gambling rooms are open till four am. So what does that tell you? It tells you that it's okay to gamble. Are we're going to support you in your habit?
No, it tells you that that's their core business. That is their core business. The rest of the facade. All they care about is exploiting you financially for as long as possible.
Oh my god, you know what. I have never thought of it that way, And you're right, Kate. So if you're feeling comfortable, do you mind sharing your story?
Kate? Sure. I grew up in Sydney in the late nineties.
I turned eighteen and my boyfriend at the time was two years older, so he had kind of entrenched gambling habits because Sydney was all I knew and I had no idea that I was actually growing up in the capital of gambling harm in Australia. New South Wales has ninety eight thousand poke machines. There's two hundred thousand in the whole of Australia and News of Wells has half of them. So wow, every single social space I went to as a young person had gambling products, so I
wanted to spend time with him. He sat me down, showed me how to use a poke machine and I put twenty dollars in and one that first time. And that was the worst thing that could have ever happened, because that pathway formed in my brain of you do this, this equals money. Then the person came and gave me this wad of cash while I was still sitting at the machine and said things to me like you're really
good at this. Wow, just that positive reinforcement and making me think like I was lucky or I knew what I was doing. And very soon it went from being with him to me going before work.
After work in my lunch break.
My whole pay packet would go on payday sometimes within an hour and I'd be still living at home. So thankfully I still had food on the table and lights on. But looking back, I could have been facing homelessness at that point, very very quickly, because it just absolutely captured my mind and my body in a way that I had not prepared to know how to navigate. I got taught about drugs and alcohol and smoking in school. Nobody mentioned gambling harm. Those two words actually didn't even exist
at that time. It was just gamble responsibly, you know. So that continued for about a year, and I'm watching my friends go on trips and I had no money to do that. I was just working week to week and borrowing money off my siblings, off my parents to try and get by, and slowly but surely.
Disconnecting with myself.
And there's no doubt that these machines are built for addiction, and they mentally hijack you. But what I didn't understand at that time was it also hijacks your sense of hope.
So all of the hopes.
And dreams that I once had for my life were now no longer in my view, and all I kept thinking about was trying to get it back or I couldn't even put my finger on what was driving me, But it was actually this desire to have never ever sat down and ever engaged with the product. I just wanted to go back to when my life was normal, and that seemed so so far away. How old were you then, Kate, I was eighteen nineteen.
And did family members know something was wrong or you kept it like a secret?
Yeah?
They just thought I would have spent my paypacket like out socializing with my friends or on cloe or something like that.
There was no visible.
Indication like there is with drinking or drugs, so nobody suspected that it was gambling harm and even if they did, they wouldn't have known what to do with that information anyway. Then miraculously I met my husband, broke up with my boyfriend, moved to Canberra. Thought I'd left all of that in Sydney. Eighteen months into our marriage. We were twenty three. At
the time, I was expecting my second child. We were building a home and the mother's group that I was a part of was going to like the local child center, and then they said, oh, look, we won't be able to meet here anymore. You're going to have to find somewhere else to meet. One of the women said, how about we meet at the club. There's like a playground.
So we went to this playground and as soon as I walked in the venue and I heard the machines and felt myself just distracted by that familiar lights and sounds, and it just kind of haunted me. I obviously didn't use them that day. But one day, when I didn't have the children with me, I thought, there's money in the account to start building the house.
Remember that time you won.
You know, you could just spend a little and win more, and did it, you know, And that was it. I went through thirty thousand dollars in a month, and that was the first time I wanted to take my life, and.
So it was really hard.
And at that point I came clean to my husband and yeah, had I not been pregnant, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I promise you that. And then he said, look, look, it's just money. Don't worry about it, like, we'll be fine, And he took my cards off me for a week. But we had our own business and he needed me to do things, you know. I was essentially the financial controller of our family, which
was just a nightmare to navigate. And anyway, that continued then for the next decade of me thinking all right, you've got to handle on this, it's fine, and then have a massive like binge and go through thousands and thousands, and then I had another child and had a like a forced period of abstinence, and then find the bills pile up.
The stress it had just kept.
Cycling me around and around, and because I'd never had anyone explain it to me, I kept feeling like it was my own personal failing. I just was dealing with it all on my own. The first time I RNG Lifeline back in two thousand and three, I got told.
Just don't wear shoes.
If you don't wear shoes, you won't be able to get into a venue, so you won't be able to gamble.
Oh my god.
And I was like, ah, okay, that's really not helpful. I said, I just feel like I need a rehab, Like if I was addicted to drugs, there would be a rehabit I could go to and I could get support. This woman said, no, there's no rehabs for gambling, and if there was, they'd be for men. So that made me feel like I was the only woman experiencing this
and it was just a nightmare. Then a couple of years later, a friend of mine saw me gambling when we were out socializing, and she confronted me and she said, you know, I know this psychologist.
You could go see the psychologist friend of oz.
And I went to see this woman and she just charged me two hundred dollar an hour and had absolutely no insights into what I was going through.
It just didn't help.
So when you put your hand up for help and it's not met with compassion, understanding you know the right supports, you lose hope. So fast forward to twenty twelve. I just been Christmas. Christmas is a very intense period for people experiencing gambling, harm and all the guilt and everything of wanting to make it all all right for my children.
I found myself.
In a venue game and just didn't want to be here anymore, didn't know how to come home, didn't know who to talk to.
But I was pregnant with.
Our sixth child, and that's why I'm still here today.
She kept me here.
Because at that point I thought everyone's better off without me. But I was so grateful to be having her. Each one of my children has been like just the greatest blessing in amongst the worst hell imaginable. So my husband had called like a thousand times trying to find me, and they said, please just come home. I think that was the moment that he actually saw how much pain
and isolation I was in. And that's something that's very common amongst loved ones, trying to navigate that dynamic between somebody who's experiencing gambling harm and them not knowing how to navigate it. And he just finally saw my pain clearly and said, please, we'll find someone that can help.
And the next day he drove me to an amazing woman who worked for Mission Australia at the time, and for the first time I felt seen and heard and not judged by what I'd been through and started to just build back pieces of me that had been lost when I was eighteen.
Thank you for sharing that. I know that's tough to do. Did you have to learn who you are? Oh? Yes?
And did that yeah take a lot of work and effort. Yes, And I suppose you're still on that journey.
Hey, I feel like I know myself pretty well now, but I remember you know you said this focus is on self care. I mean, those two words had never entered my vocabulary until she said to me, what do you do for self care?
I was like, what is that? You know?
My whole identity was just so confused and shattered from trying to operate under a label of am I gambling at it?
I didn't want that label.
I didn't feel like it resonated, but I knew I was addicted. But I didn't understand how to wrestle with that. And when I started showing up for myself differently and looking at all that was at play, it was so unreasonable for me to think that I could operate in a normal state when I had just been absolutely coated in shame for over a decade, never really been comfortable with my humanness. You know, I had thought I've wrecked this. I'm not perfect, I'm not the perfect mum, I'm not
the perfect wife. It's all ruined. Why can't I be like the other wives and mums that I know? And this realization that my children didn't need me to be perfect, they needed me to model how to be human.
They just needed your doll and just grow through the experience. You know like that.
My twelve year old the morning after I almost didn't come home, said Mom, like, where were you?
No one could find you?
And I thought, shit, I have to tell him now that I've been struggling all this time and I had hidden it from everyone. And I said, look, mate, I've just made so many mistakes.
I don't know what to do. And he goes, Mum, everyone makes mistas and I just thought, oh my gosh, from the mouth of a baby, of course they do.
Why did I think that I had disqualified myself from being worthy?
You know, because those machines and the way it rewired your brain made you think that you weren't worthy exactly. And when I looked at the product and how to being designed, I was like, oh my gosh, I used it exactly how.
It was designed to be used. From a user standpoint, I am the model client absolutely, and this absolute mind f of you know, there's all these people that can use it properly and you can't.
But what a lie? But are people using it properly? That's exactly right. That's the industry lie that they spin.
There's all these people that can do this, and there's just these few and.
They labeled them problem gamblers.
That terminology weaponized that shame and made it an individual problem instead of people having a focus on This is a really toxic and predatory industry that is absolutely financially devastating this nation at an alarming rate, and we've just allowed it to be on every corner.