"Gambling is for people who don't understand arithmetic" According to Oswald P Wrong
It’s called chasing your money. Betting too much on your mob of losers to win the Tri Nations in Leeds, then doing it again for a win at 80 minutes in the next Tri Nations, then backing them to win the rugby league world cup, then losing it all on the Four Nations. Aussie punters have had a huge kick in the pants from backing the Kangalose.
We wont even hint at mentioning the humiliation that was the Beijing Olympics where they finished behind even England on the medal tally, nor will me remind readers of the arse kicking their unbeatable Sockerlose got at the Soccer World Cup including the opening 4 nil thrashing the Germany.
The summer of Cricket also should be kept silent as it would cause any Aussie punter to sh!t his pants to think how much he lost backing his pack of sad sacks who were unbeatable during the match fixing era.
So we’ll ignore all that and just look at the latest news coming out of Loser Central on how the Aussies are world leaders at problem gambling.
“Gambling is for people who don’t understand arithmetic” According to Oswald P Wrong, the noted world champion tipster. “Sadly, Ockers are world leaders at failing school as well” he confirmed.
WHEN the Australian Securities and Investments Commission quietly dropped its opposition this week to betting on interest rate moves it raised the odds of the lucky country continuing an unwanted winning streak.
The latest edition of The Economist ranks Australians as the world’s biggest gamblers per capita, spending the equivalent of €902 ($1208.75) each last year.
”Australia has led for the past decade, since we started doing this, and has always been well ahead of the other nations,” said Joel Keeble of H2 Gambling Capital, which provided the British publication’s data.
Ignoring the statistical anomaly that is Singapore – its two new casinos nearly match the entire Las Vegas strip in terms of the gambling spend – the next closest competition for Australia is Ireland, which spent less than half as much on gambling.
Electronic gaming machines, the catch-all term that includes poker machines, account for most of this outsized lead on other developed nations, H2 said, but it noted Australians’ propensity to engage in a range of forms of gambling.
This now includes bets on next month’s interest rate decision by the Reserve Bank after the commission dropped attempts to ban the practice.
As of yesterday, the betting agency that the commission targeted, Centrebet, was offering punters a $1.12 return if interest rates remain unchanged and $26 if they are cut.
The corporate watchdog objected on the grounds that this amounts to trading in derivatives without a financial licence – a reference to the exotic financial instruments that helped trigger the global financial crisis.
But the most contentious issue remains Australians’ love affair with poker machines. This accounts for the big gap with the rest of the developed world when it comes to gambling expenditure.
A report by the Productivity Commission said $19 billion was spent on gambling in 2008-09, $12 billion of it on poker machines.
The commission said up to 40 per cent of the money spent on the pokies comes from problem gamblers, representing a $5 billion drain on an estimated 90,000 people.
It has now become a problem for the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who received the much-needed support of the independent MP Andrew Wilkie to form a minority government by agreeing to implement a national mandatory precommitment scheme to curb problem gambling.
Centrebet has the Coalition as more likely to win the next federal election, but Ms Gillard can take comfort in the fact she is favoured by punters to lead the Labor Party to the election.
