10

The unfortunate one

Regardless of what the Federal Court ruled in the case against Crown and Aristocrat, opponents of the industry maintain that those inside it are wicked individuals. As Nick Xenophon has said, they’re ‘a pack of malevolent bastards’. But the people who make and operate poker machines see themselves very differently. In their own eyes, they are as innocent of any moral wrongdoing as they are of any legal wrongdoing, and have no more to answer for than a gardener does.

In an episode of the ABC podcast series How Do You Sleep at Night?, Len Ainsworth — the 94-year-old billionaire gambling baron who founded Aristocrat and helped pioneer the most innovative, most profitable, and, as it turned out, the most harmful poker machines — makes it clear that he has no trouble sleeping. He says the job of poker machine manufacturers like himself is to provide entertainment. ‘And we do that very successfully,’ he boasts. ‘We make all kinds of features to entertain people, and it’s really up to them from there.’ He believes what he is doing is ‘right’ and that the number of people he is ‘making happy far transcends those people who get into trouble’. He is aware of classical and operant conditioning, but dismisses claims by public-health experts that poker machines use these principles to addict players as ‘total rubbish’ and ‘nonsense’.

Ainsworth also says that he’ll feel responsible for individuals who experience harm from gambling on poker machines ‘when General Motors feel responsible for the accidents that some nut at the wheel might have’. And to anyone who struggles with self-control, he gives this advice: ‘I think if you can’t control yourself, whether it’s gluttony or whether it’s playing machines, or whatever, well, it’s time you took some lessons.’

Insiders I meet personally have as clean a conscience as Ainsworth.

Peter Wells, the head game developer for one of the leading poker machine manufacturing companies, also knows about conditioning theory and people’s innate, biological desire to identify patterns, but firmly rejects the idea that poker machines are either an addictive or immoral product. In fact, he thinks the judgement that he and colleagues face is unfair and should be directed elsewhere. ‘I know that everything I do is squeaky clean,’ he tells me. ‘But I see so many other industries that are so dodgy. Big Pharma, for example. They’re the sorts of people I look at and think, Geez, how do those guys get up every morning?’

Fast food is another industry that Wells believes is far more deserving of adverse judgement than the one he works in. ‘I would feel more concerned morally about making fast food than I would about making slot machines.’ He elaborates by saying, ‘If I worked for McDonald’s — say as a research scientist — I’m trying to make crappy food taste good. And if I was in marketing for McDonald’s, I’m trying to get people in from a young age and as many people eating that food that is affecting vast amounts of people’s health.’

Wells sees developing poker machines as not only morally sound, but also as an exciting creative challenge. ‘It’s like trying to paint a masterpiece holding a paintbrush with chopsticks,’ he says, ‘because you can’t ever get a total handle on what’s going on with the game, how it’s going to end up, and how the market is going to be by the time it gets there.’ He says this makes his job ‘a fun endeavour’ — depending, he adds, ‘on what your personality is like’.

Ryan Jacobs, the industry insider who was once addicted to gambling and now compares poker machines with women, admits there might be some traits in poker machines that are potentially addictive. ‘But it’s a business,’ he tells me. ‘A business in the fact that we are developing a device here that we are trying to earn money [with]. So what’s the best way to do it? The better, the prettier, the smarter they are, the more people will play them and the more money we get.’ He does not think that this makes poker machines in any way ‘deceptive or criminal’, saying ‘there’s no cheating out there — they’re all working within the rules and parameters.’

Jacobs admits he is concerned seeing ‘people that have got that problem who are pouring their heart and their soul and all that money into the pokies’. But, he asks, ‘whose fault is that?’ For him, it’s certainly not his or anyone else’s in the industry. ‘You can design a machine however you want, but it’s up to the person to play,’ he says. ‘It’s up to the person to light up a cigarette, and I think gambling is the same.’

Mark Fitzgibbon, the ex-CEO of ClubsNSW, echoes this. Although knowing people who experienced harm as a result of playing poker machines had concerned him during his time in the industry, he ‘didn’t have any more of a moral dilemma than those within Tooheys or Holden do’ because ‘people playing poker machines — it’s their choice’. He says this with full confidence, despite admitting he is unfamiliar with the science of gambling addiction. ‘If you’re playing a poker machine and it expelled some gas which took you into some trance and made you play, obviously that’s not on. But I’m personally not aware of any science which shows that playing poker machines put people into some sort of trance which causes them to lose.’

Mike Bailey, the chairman of Wests Ashfield Leagues Club, is also as certain of his and the industry’s lack of moral responsibility as he is ignorant of the effect that poker machines have on a user’s brain. ‘No,’ he says sincerely when I ask if he knows anything about the neuroscience of unpredicted rewards, near misses, and losses disguised as wins. Yet, in response to my next question about whether he thinks poker machines are safe, he says, ‘Put it this way. I think it gets back to whatever turns you on.’ Later, he speculates that, ‘There’s something in the human being that wants more. That’s seen in the political situation. It’s why people in America are wanting to vote for Donald Trump. They believe — foolishly — that he’s going to turn things around for them. It’s not going to happen, but people like to believe that it will. And it’s the same with gaming.’

Leon Wiegard, the president of Community Clubs Victoria, thinks the same. When I ask if he believes poker machines are safe, he says, ‘For a large percentage, yes.’ His explanation for why some people get into trouble with them is that, ‘It’s a hope thing, isn’t it?’ He adds that this is ‘very much an amateur view of it, because I don’t know.’ I ask if he is interested in learning more about the science of gambling addiction. ‘I’ve got a full plate already,’ he says.

At the G2E Asia trade show event in Macau, the absence of guilt is on full display alongside the newest poker machines.

One sales representative from Aruze Gaming — a stocky, bald, besuited man who speaks in a thick Australian drawl — tells me, ‘I always laugh. There’s a lot of judgement working in the gaming industry, and so for a long time when people would ask, “What do you do for a job?”, I’d say, “I’m a bricklayer,” because if I said that I make slots, I get judgement calls and people start having a go. There’s some negativity all around the world about gaming. I had another friend who used to say to people, when they asked what she did, that she was in the adult-entertainment industry. People straightaway thought, Porn. “No,” she’d say. “We entertain adults. That’s our job.” I really like that expression — the adult-entertainment industry.’ He laughs.

A sales representative from IGT says that what ‘amazes’ him about poker machines is ‘what works’. ‘The fact is we can have a game that is like a hero product — everyone wants to play that game. So we say, “Right — let’s take the maths of that game and use it exactly as it is in another game.” But then people don’t like the new game, even though the maths and everything is exactly the same. What players connect to, what players like — that’s always the struggle in the industry.’ He adds, ‘All we’re selling is time.’

An Australian game developer from Aristocrat who I meet while wandering around the company stall is so morally unperturbed that he thinks what he does for work is hilarious. ‘Imagine before gambling was ever invented, and someone said, “Oh — try to make people enjoy a game that they are guaranteed to lose their money on in the long run,”’ he says, laughing loudly. ‘It sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly what we’re doing.’

I listen to a panel discussion about the future of the poker machine industry, featuring the chief executives of Aristocrat, IGT, and Scientific Games. Over a joke-filled hour, they discuss new ways to generate more revenue, make poker machines more entertaining, and attract new customers, including young customers. ‘No matter which conference we go to, or which panel one sits and listens to, this question of “How do we attract the next generation into the gaming world?” gets asked,’ Walter Bugno of IGT, says. ‘And it gets asked all the time, because there’s no simple answer. If we had the answer, we’d all be doing it.’

Trevor Croker of Aristocrat says one of the principal challenges that the industry faces in attracting younger customers to poker machines is that many are ‘heavily in debt’. So while, he adds, they might spend money gambling on occasion, ‘their ability to continue to spend is not strong’. Derrick Mooberry of Scientific Games agrees. ‘There are some millennials that do have money,’ he says. ‘But I have three kids who are everywhere from early twenties to late twenties, and if they have any dollars in their wallet it came from their mum.’ This draws loud laughter from the rest of the panel and the crowd.

Bugno identifies another challenge that the industry faces in getting young people to gamble. ‘Their span of attention is much lower,’ he says. ‘They’re used to clicking in and out of things.’ This challenge is easier to overcome than the first, and Bugno thinks the way to do so is by providing new mediums for poker machines. ‘And that medium has to be fast, it has to be moving with them. And unless we’ve got that sort of machine, we’ll miss them. Or we’ll miss a large part of them.’

I wait for the discussion to turn to the harm that gambling causes and how this might be reduced in the future. It never does. The discussion does, however, turn briefly to the hugely successful gambling market in Australia. When the moderator jokes that, ‘The idea of a matron sitting in a Returned Services League club playing a pokie — that’s as Australian as Skippy the Bush Kangaroo,’ the rest of the panel and those in the crowd again burst into laughter.

So adamant are those in the industry that right is on their side that not only do they think there is nothing wrong with encouraging young people to bet with their machines, but they are even deeply cynical about the motivations of their critics. As Len Ainsworth says in the ABC podcast: ‘We’re very, very accustomed to the digs that the daily press make from time to time. And I think the interesting thing about that is that they never ever come and talk to us. They just print what they feel like. It depends — if there’s no rape, murder, incests available, then the machines will do.’

Or as Ryan Jacobs tells me, ‘How many people fighting for responsible gaming are doing it for political leverage, or because they really care?’

Or as Leon Wiegard tells me, ‘Some [opponents] are at the sharp end, only seeing the nasty end of it. But some of them are very good at getting their head in the paper, and they’re onto a bit of a winner in that regard, because the papers love that. Anti-anything suits the papers.’

Or as Mike Bailey tells me, ‘There will always be people in politics who are opposed to gaming. For the right reasons — because they genuinely have come across cases of hardship. Or because they can see potential headlines for themselves in it.’

I wonder what they will all think of me. Then I realise I don’t really care. Just as many probably don’t care what I think of them.

The poker machine industry insiders I met are not stupid, or sociopathic, or in any way extraordinary. They are educated, sane individuals who live pretty workaday existences like the rest of us. Through meeting and speaking with them, it became clear to me that they are not motivated by a desire to inflict harm on others. They do not directly consider the issue of addiction (which, in a way, is probably part of the problem), but instead focus on creating a successful product — that is, a product that is as profitable as it can be. And while they might not have expressed any sense of guilt, they did express concern that people suffer as a result of gambling excessively.

During interviews, they spoke with confidence, candour, and sincerity; they gave absolutely no hint that they didn’t truly believe the views they expressed about poker machines and their lack of accountability for the harm caused by them. However, I still often wondered if this was so. Away from work, and alone at home, did they ever have moments of doubt? Moments when they questioned whether there was any difference between ‘making crappy food taste good’ and making people enjoy themselves while they keep losing money? Moments when they did not think that industry critics are lying and are simply motivated by a desire for publicity? Moments when they felt guilty?

Initially, I thought it unlikely — even impossible — that they wouldn’t have such moments. I thought that, surely, somewhere inside each and every one of them was a troubling sense that, as the people who make and operate a device that is carefully configured to encourage people to gamble for as long as possible, and has been scientifically proven to exploit psychological and biological vulnerabilities within all humans, they are at least partly responsible for the suffering of Doug and the thousands of others like him. I thought they just somehow managed to suppress this sense.

But later I realised that, in thinking this, I was not only projecting my own thoughts but also ignoring a confronting truth that has been observed and documented over many, many decades. And that truth is this: it is possible for people of sound mind and substantial intelligence involved in harmful industries, as well as murderous political regimes, to feel no guilt whatsoever for the damage their actions cause to others.

The explanation for this will never be known for certain. But it has long been hypothesised that it is associated with a failure to exercise independent thought and judgement, and the surrendering of basic human values to those of the government, organisation or company one is involved in. This is one of political philosopher Hannah Arendt’s core ideas in Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil. As she wrote of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust:

What he said was always the same, expressed in the same words. The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such.

Arendt’s point is echoed by writer Roger Rosenblatt in a 1994 essay about the absence of guilt among the executives of Phillip Morris, the largest tobacco company in America:

None of these executives think of themselves as morally bankrupt, and I do not think of them individually in that way, either. What often happens to people who work for a large, immensely successful company, however, is that they tend to adopt the values of the company, regardless of its product. Loyalty supersedes objectivity … In speaking with these Philip Morris executives, I felt the presence of the company within the person. In the end, I felt that I was speaking with more company than person, or perhaps to a person who could no longer distinguish between the two.

This notion, I think, also applies to those who make and operate poker machines. Indeed, I often had a similar feeling to Rosenblatt of speaking to more company than person. All those I spoke to made almost exactly the same claims, using almost exactly the same language, so much so that it was easy to imagine that they had been programmed like a poker machine to think and speak in the way they did. This frustrated as much as it saddened me. I felt pity for these individuals. I wondered: what must life be like, as I think it is for them, to not interrogate oneself? To not question one’s belief system? To not listen to, or even engage with, scientific evidence? To not see the consequences of one’s actions on others? To put profit above people?

Writing this book, I also wondered whether the men and women who make and operate poker machines are wicked and morally bankrupt because of the work they do, as I have heard some opponents boldly suggest. This suggestion is, I think, gravely wrong. To say this is to paint human morality in black and white — which it never is. It is to reduce these people to a single part of their being when, like all others, they are the sum of many. In short, it is to generalise about the un-generalisable.

If he were still alive today, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the nineteenth-century Russian literary giant who also happened to be a severely addicted gambler, would say much the same. According to him, nobody is a bad person. As he writes in The Writer’s Diary, ‘We are all good fellows — except the bad ones, of course. Yet I shall observe in passing that among us, perhaps there are no bad people at all — maybe only wretched ones.’

Later, Dostoyevsky explains what he means less cryptically:

[It] does happen sometimes that a person commits a villainy and praises himself for it, elevating his villainy to the level of a principle, and claiming that l’ordre and the light of civilization are precisely expressed in that abomination; the unfortunate one ends by believing this sincerely, blindly, and honestly.

Not all who make and operate poker machines, however, sincerely, blindly, and honestly believe that what the industry holds is true. Those who don’t live torn, tormented existences.

While demoing one of the major manufacturer’s newest poker machines at the G2E trade show in Macau, I start speaking to a tall man with big brown eyes who I’ll call George. He wears an open-necked collared shirt embroidered with the company emblem, and a pair of navy trousers. He tells me that I ‘don’t fit the style’ of casinos. ‘You should come here with a nice tie, short hair. Then you would be the same as everybody. They all have the same style. You look different — you should go to a hippy festival.’ He and I both laugh.

George asks where I’m from and what I’m doing at the expo. When I tell him I’m researching a book on poker machines, he goes silent for a moment. He looks at me seriously, and gives what seems to be an approving nod. Unprompted, he immediately begins sharing his thoughts about and critiques of the industry, as if a cork within him has just popped. He is as poetic as he is passionate, and, after twenty minutes standing and talking at the company stall surrounded by hundreds of noisy poker machines and many of his colleagues, he invites me to have lunch with him at one of the many restaurants in The Venetian. ‘It’s interesting what you’re writing, so I’m excited to talk more,’ he says.

George has been a poker machine technician since 2005. He says every one of his company’s machines in the Asian market ‘will pass through my hands in order to be built’. He doesn’t gamble himself, though. For many reasons, he explains. One is that when he has done so in the past, he has always lost and become ‘upset and angry’. Another is that he is a ‘deeply philosophical person’, and believes that the world of gambling is a ‘really fake world’. He is, he says, much more interested in spending time in nature and with friends. ‘If you tell me, “Take a yacht and go sailing with five people,” that would be fabulous. But if you tell me, “Go to that casino with those beautiful girls to try and win money,” I’m not interested. It’s fake. It doesn’t say anything to my soul.’

Yet another reason George doesn’t gamble is that he knows better than anyone else the truth about poker machines. ‘I make these machines in order to grab your money. I would not be so stupid to play myself.’

‘One secret’ of poker machines, George tells me, is that every possible combination can appear ‘regardless of how much you bet’, even though manufacturers and operators often say that high bets are needed to win the jackpot. ‘It doesn’t matter — it’s bullshit. But of course we tell you to bet max, because we want you to play more money in order that you lose quickly, and then somebody else comes and plays. We want your money. All this bullshit that we say is just marketing.’

So, too, he says, is the industry’s response to gambling harm. He says it is insincere, and born not out of a will to actually help, but a will to maintain profits while maintaining a clean image. ‘All the casinos and the companies give you a number to call if you need help to stop gambling. If you call, they tell you, “Oh it’s okay. Don’t worry — try not to play so much.” Stop the fucking casinos if you want to help! It’s hypocritical — I hate it.’

According to George, the poker machine industry ‘sells hope’ and ‘destroys peoples lives’. It is fundamentally based on understanding ‘the psychology of people’; on how to ‘attract somebody to play on a machine where the odds of winning are against them’. All the lights and sounds on machines, he says, are there to ‘make you dizzy’, and the whole design of gambling venues — the lack of windows, the virtual invisibility of clocks — is intended to ‘make you isolated and forget your problems’. If the industry didn’t do this, and was instead honest about its inner workings, he says, it would not exist. ‘If someone told you that if you play the machines, it’s most likely that you’re going to lose your money, would you play them? No way. Maybe some would. But most people would say, “Fuck off. I don’t want to lose my money.”’

Knowing all of this initially troubled George. ‘At the beginning, I hated my job. I said, “I’m contributing to something which is wrong.”’ But, he says, his guilt waned when he started explaining to people how poker machines work. ‘And they said, “It’s okay, man. Say whatever you like. I like to play.”’

This, George says, has convinced him that ‘the gambler has a psychological problem. They win money and they stay. It’s like masochism, really. They want to be beaten.’ Or, he says, it’s like drugs. ‘There must be some chemical reaction in the brain. An adrenaline rush. And that’s what people seek.’

Either way, George says he doesn’t feel guilty about his involvement in the industry, like he once did. ‘I tried to help, but nobody listens. What can I do? I’ve done my part.’

I tried to help, but nobody listens. What can I do? I’ve done my part. Does George sincerely believe this, I wonder? Or, by vocalising it, is he trying to convince himself as much as he is trying to convince me of its truthfulness? As a ‘deeply philosophical man’, it seems odd that he would not see the weakness in his logic, know how absurd it is to say that the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer from gambling actually want to suffer, and that, ultimately, he and others are not accountable? Or maybe he doesn’t? Maybe, despite my suspicions to the contrary, he is much the same as his colleagues?

George answers these questions of mine later when he remarks, ‘If I’m honest, I shouldn’t be working in this job. I would not be sad or unhappy if they closed all the casinos. I would really be happy. Close them. I don’t mind if I lose my job — I’ll find something else.’ He says he still often wonders, Why the fuck am I doing this?

I ask if he has an answer. He replies frankly.

‘It’s a good salary, and you need money in order to live. I have two kids, and they need money to study. My house is very old, so I need money to renovate it. You have to do something with your life, at least to leave something for your kids. Maybe you find it a bit hypocritical, but where else could I find the money to do what I needed?’

On top of the good salary, George, who has an electrical-engineering background, also says that the technical aspect of poker machines has kept him working in the industry. ‘I love to find out how machines work — the math, electronics, graphics. But if you put me in sales, I couldn’t. I cannot cheat the people with bullshit. I’m very straight, actually.’

George talks long after we have finished eating and the waiter has cleared our table. He speaks of technology interfering with people’s ability to be mindful, of Van Gogh, Picasso, Greek mythology and philosophy, and of his ideal future — a traditional life in a small house on a quiet farm with his girlfriend, growing their own fruit and vegetables, disconnected from the internet. He will, he says, soon leave his current job to pursue this dream.

Moments later, his phone starts ringing. He answers, speaking subserviently to whoever is on the other end of the line. ‘Coming, coming … Coming in two minutes … Yes … Yes … Yes … I’ll see you soon … I’ll be two minutes.’ He hangs up.

‘I’ve got to go back,’ he says to me, laughing and shaking his head. ‘They pay us a salary, so we have to show up some times. Good luck with the book.’