What do Tattersall’s corporate affairs people think they are doing?

When problematic gamblers recall being in the mental state they call “the zone”, they describe an absence of rationality. The virtue of truth about what they are doing has long been forgotten. Nothing else exists in “the zone” other than the relationship with the machine. Neither friends nor family matter. The infernal sound of the pre-programmed drip-fed win alone is sufficient motivation to continue.

In reality problem or heavy gamblers do not experience reasonable hope. What they describe instead is alternating emotions of despair and delusion. Tattersall’s and Tabcorp prey on the despair by manufacturing the delusion, unconscionably in my view. The only hope here is false hope.

This brings me to my third point. Read Black and Ramsey’s last sentence carefully: “A gambling industry that took itself seriously could undo the harm done and discover its real potential to contribute to human fulfilment and the common good.” Call me perverse, but I infer this to be saying that the gambling giants currently are not, in practice, behaving altogether ethically, are harming potential human fulfilment and are not contributing to the common good.

What on earth was Tattersall’s thinking of?