• Watch full-length episodes of PBS documentary series FRONTLINE for free. The Retirement Gamble - Will your IRA or 401K accounts ensure a safe retirement?
• The Last Dance is a 2020 American sports documentary miniseries co-produced by ESPN Films and Netflix.Directed by Jason Hehir, the series revolves around the career of Michael Jordan, with particular focus on his final season with the Chicago Bulls.

Notice the ABC logo alongside ESPN at the end of the trailer. That likely indicates The Last Dance will premiere on ABC as happened with ESPN’s last epic documentary, O.J.: Made in America.

They've been called "electronic morphine" and "the crack cocaine of gambling". Ever wonder what makes Pokies so addictive? ABC documentary Ka-Ching! Pokie Nation takes you inside the machine to find out. Courtesy ABC.

‘It’s like having a drug dealer on every corner with a license from the government.’

IN JUST over 50 years, they’ve gone from being illegal, to being everywhere.

That is the foreboding opening line delivered by the narrator of an explosive new ABC documentary that pulls back the veil on the industry designed to maximise the addictive nature of pokie machines.

They’ve been called the “crack cocaine of gambling” and “electronic morphine” but Australia has a unique relationship with the machines since they were first made legal in 1956.

“I was very interested to know about this creeping reality for so many people,” producer Mitzi Goldman tells news.com.au. “I really had no idea of the extent (of pokie addiction).”

Ms Goldman became involved with the documentary Ka-Ching! Pokie Nation four years ago after it was brought to her by fellow producer Neil Lawrence, who died suddenly in July this year, just days after it was finished.

She says the filmmaking process amounted to be a “shocking realisation” of the insidiousness of modern-day pokie machines and the predatory industry that’s pulling the lever.

There’s a lot more than meets the eye with modern pokie machines.Source:News Limited

‘BUILDING A BETTER MOUSE TRAP’

Aristocrat is the biggest manufacturer and supplier of pokie machines in the country. Back in 2000, the company’s billionaire founder Len Ainsworth was asked by Four Corners what the secret to their success was, and he didn’t mince his words.

“Building a better mouse trap,” he said.

It may not have been deliberate, but the metaphor of a mouse caught in a trap has proved to be a scarily accurate one.

As the science and technology involved in the industry has advanced in recent years, manufacturers have been able to design machines perfectly engineered to create addiction.

“They’re actually designed to take advantage of how the brain works,” Ms Goldman says. “They have the same effect on the brain as cocaine does.”

Public health expert Dr Charles Livingstone went a step further.

“It’s like having someone on every street corner selling drugs with a licence from the government,” he told news.com.au.

The machines are designed to keep their players in a trance by taking advantage of certain chemical responses in the brain. Features such as the random reinforcement schedule that disguises losses as wins and the in-built programming that gives the frequent appearance of a near miss all work to prey on the neurological makeup of players.

Everything from the painstakingly composed music to the speed of the spinning reels is engineered to hypnotise players. Players like Sharon Hollamby.

That haze stays with you when you leave the venue,” she told news.com.au. “You still here the music in your head.”

Ms Hollamby battled pokie addiction for 15 years. She now works with an advocacy group she founded in 2010 called Communities Without Pokies.

PLAYING TO EXTINCTION

A study carried out in the 1950s by American scientists James Olds and Peter Milner gave unprecedented understanding of the power of stimulating certain areas in the brain. The most famous of these experiments involved a rat that was given the chance to self administer a pleasurable electric shock to the brain by simply pressing a pedal. The rat ignored food and drink and kept pressing the pedal until it died of exhaustion.

Researchers say the same underlying mechanisms are at play when someone blows all their money on the pokies.

Machines are set to pay out anywhere from 85 to 97 cents of every dollar they take in. According to one designer featured in the documentary, many Aussie machines he deals with are programmed at the lower end of the scale, meaning they chew money quicker. But even though they’re programmed to return a percentage of the money, if a player continues to play indefinitely, they will eventually lose everything.

It’s known as “playing to extinction” by industry insiders and it’s considered the common goal of pokie manufacturers.

Just like the rat that keeps on pressing the pedal.

Public health researchers are forced to always be playing catch-up with the industry.

THE RUTHLESS TRANSFER OF WEALTH

Throughout Australia, pokies bring in $12 billion of revenue a year. Western Australia is the only state in the country that doesn’t allow them.

While that figure comes straight from the back pockets of ordinary Australians and can prove devastating on a personal level, the macro consequences are equally as ruinous.

Clubs and pubs with large numbers of machines are disproportionately found in poorer postcodes around the country. “Sometimes there is not much else to do (in these communities),” Ms Goldman says. As a consequence, that $12 billion is overwhelmingly coming from problem gamblers in lower socio-economic areas. “It’s quite predatory on those people that can least afford to play these machines,” she says.

“What poker machines do is entrench disadvantage,” Dr Livingstone says. “It provides a channel of money from disadvantaged people to the wealthy, including the shareholders of Woolworths. “It’s a good way to ensure intergenerational disadvantage.”

Woolworths and Coles together are the largest owners of poker machines in Australia, with more than 15,000 machines.

The gaming industry and the Australia Hotels Association are quick to point out the benefits of pokies by putting money back into the community. While state governments certainly rely on revenue generated by pokie machines for roads and hospitals, Dr Livingstone is sceptical about the real economic benefit they provide.

“At the moment, cost-benefit appears to favour industry, but when you look closely, those benefits appear pretty hollow,” he said.

Dr Livingstone said there was a grave social cost caused by problem gamblers that is difficult to quantify. “The consequences are divorce, crime, physical and mental harm, and in many cases suicide,” he said.

Ms Hollamby works with a number of counselling groups in her home state of South Australia and echoes his concerns.

Abc Gambling Documentary Tv Show

“A lot more people are addicted than what is being reported,” she says. “People are killing themselves over these stupid machines.”

Abc Gambling Documentary Youtube

Anti-poker machine rally at Parliament House in Adelaide in July 1992.Source:News Corp Australia

IN LOVE WITH THE MONEY

Those seeking reform in the industry face a daunting challenge. State governments have become reliant on the easy revenue created by the machines and lobbyists for the gambling industry maintain close ties with government officials.

While it’s long been a political issue, genuine actions are hard to achieve.

Independent South Australian political candidate Mark Aldridge works alongside Ms Hollamby and says the impediments to reform are many.

A former pokie addict himself, he realised the machines had a hold on him when he faked being robbed after losing $2000 in one particular trip to the pub.

While fellow South Australian independent politician Nick Xenephon shot to the senate on an anti-pokies platform and is a well-known opponent of the industry, Mr Aldridge has been bitterly disappointed by the lack of action from the senator.

“I think they’re token efforts,” he tells news.com.au. “It actually undermines the cause because people think someone’s doing something about it and relax on the topic. But these things need to be worked on daily.”

In 2010, federal reform looked close to happening, but it was eventually squashed by the highly organised gaming industry.

Not afraid to go on the offensive, ClubsNSW has already launched defamation action against the ABC for comments made in the documentary by former Labor minister Peter Garrett that implied he had previously been bribed by the group.

Dr Livingstone says the pokie fight is similar to the early days of the tobacco industry and the push for greater road safety. Just like the introduction of seatbelts and airbags reduced the death toll on our roads, he wants to see measures that limit the size and frequency of bets allowed on pokie machines.

As for the film, producer Mitzi Goldman says it’s all about putting the scrutiny back on the machine in the face of what she calls a successful PR campaign to place the responsibility solely on the players: the problem gamblers.

Ka-Ching! Pokie Nation airs on Tuesday night at 9.30pm on the ABC.

The Australian TV documentary Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds has taken home a gong at the International Emmy awards.

The show, from production company Endemol Shine Australia, which aired on the ABC in 2019, took out the prize in the non-scripted entertainment category in the US on Tuesday. It was up against another Endemol Shine production, Canta Comigo, from Brazil; Norway’s The Public Enlightenment – Make Lillestrøm Great Again; and season three of MasterChef Thailand.

Abc Gambling Documentary Movie

Based on a UK format, Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds explores the benefits for Australia’s elderly population from spending time with young children. In a “social experiment” format, a group of retirement home residents mixed with preschoolers in a preschool built within their care facilities while experts in geriatric health and early childhood monitored the progress of the participants.

Related: Aacta awards 2020: Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Ned Kelly gang vie for honours

The show won an Aacta award last year for best documentary or factual program, as well as gold at the 2020 New York Festivals TV and Film awards for best social issues documentary.

It was the only Australian show to win an award this year at the International Emmys, which specifically recognises excellence in television programming outside the US.

“Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds combines the magical spontaneity and innocence of young kids with the wisdom and heart of older generations,” Jennifer Collins, the ABC’s head of factual and culture, said on Tuesday.

Abc Gambling Documentary Cast

“There are very few programs that give a voice to our elders and this is a perfect vehicle for bridging the divide between generations, with humour and joy.”

Related: Content: ABC's world-first series made for mobile – from the creators of Bluey

The ABC’s Hardball won an International Emmy Kids award last month while Ludo Studios’ beloved children’s cartoon Bluey won an International Emmy Kids award for 2019.

Another Australian show, Content – an ABC drama created for viewing on mobile that unfolds entirely from the perspective of an aspiring influencer’s smartphone – was nominated in this year’s International Emmys in the short-form series category. That award went to the Czech Republic thriller #Martyisdead, which follows a father investigating his son’s digital footprint after his apparently accidental death.