Link: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/03/why-i-risked-prison-to-add-a-losing-sound-to-poker-machines/

And if you want the issue to be debated in parliament you can sign a petition linked in the article.

Fuck pokies, they've destroyed what pubs once were.

A great short read, and nice video!

Sharing some other relevant articles on pokies:

• The Guardian (Australia)- Hooked: how pokies are designed to be addictive (also explores similar reward-manipulation techniques with interactive demos (e.g. loses disguised as wins), in fact it's one of the cool examples on https://explorabl.es/all/ )

• How Much Money Can We Launder In A Day? - a satirical stunt featuring whistleblower Troy Stolz - former head of ClubsNSW's anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism unit and current councilor - "He leaked an internal report that stated that 95% of registered clubs in New South Wales were non-compliant with anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism laws.".

That sounds like a brilliant idea, simple, elegant, cheap to implement and effective.

Thank you for sharing this link, the gambling industry will desperately try to kill the initiative, because they know it will be a financial disaster.

But that just means that it absolutely needs to be implemented.

If implemented, I see two future scenarios, both less bad than what we have now:

1. The sound is implemented in the machine, no other change is made, this causes the desired effect and makes people less prone to gamble.
2. The sound is implemented, but the machines are modified to play it fewer times, they set less outright losses, and increase the chance of winning back your money for another go, probably with a small win sound, to drown out the loss sound, to do this the larger payouts are reduced.

Both of these options reduce the incentive to gamble.

Thank you for that. Please share the petition. Let's get this debated in parliament.

Why did they start a change.org petition, it specifically states on the government website those aren't accepted

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions/House_of_Representatives_Petitions/Frequently_asked_questions

Obviously it'll only actually get attention through popular demand either way, but still

This is just a guess. Perhaps they chose change.org because they are likely to get more signatories than on a govt petition site.

More likely that change.org provides information about who signed (including emails unless opted out) to the person running the petition. Information gathering from informal petitions is more likely to undermine trust and make people less likely to sign, but then you can't build a database of people sympathetic to some cause and spam them afterwards.

The "20,000 petition signatures" feels like straight up manipulation - there's no magic number to force a debate at parliament, and as MisterFrog@aussie.zone points out, an official petition would be needed for it to be tabled. If an official petition with a lot of signatures is tabled, that is a signal to politicians that the public care about it, and can overcome lobbying in the other direction and apathy, so it increases the chance a bill is put up for debate.

This comes from an ad agency; they don't list any gambling companies as clients, but I'm sure they'd find information like a list of people who signed useful for something.

That said, it's still a good idea to regulate in a losing sound if there is no political will to do anything more drastic. Better yet would be to require linking play to a one-per-person card, and having hourly, daily, monthly and annual loss limits per card, after which the owner cannot allow any more losses for that card holder.

Not sure which sound I prefer:

• Loser A
• Loser B

or maybe something like

Game over, man

This may not be the case to petitions presented to the Senate but I could be wrong.

In case anyone is interested or has questions about petitions.

Here's page for our govt petition procedures: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions

Here's Change.org: https://www.change.org/petition-guides/create-a-petition

cancer factories ? ban one shitty thing but keep the other ?

https://www.cancer.org.au/cancer-information/causes-and-prevention/diet-and-exercise/limit-alcohol

There is convincing evidence that drinking any type of alcohol (beer, wine or spirits) increases the risk of cancers of the bowel, breast, mouth, throat, voice box, oesophagus (food pipe) and liver. The risk is even higher for some of these cancers in smokers who consume alcohol.

Even drinking small amounts of alcohol increases your cancer risk. The more you drink, the greater the risk.