by Noel Preston

In an earlier piece critical of the social impact of gambling in Australia, I wrote: “Gambling creates a thirst for itself in the individual and spreads like a bushfire throughout the nation…Where is it all to end? Every added gambling facility has an effect like a rotten apple in a case…Australia faces a major problem in trying to stop a spreading contagion.

In fact I wrote this in an essay during my final year at Secondary School in 1959 – when there were hardly any pokies (or Electronic Gaming Machines as they are properly known). Fifty two years later my schoolboy forecast sounds contemporary as the Australian community debates policy proposals, spear-headed by Independent MP Andrew Wilkie, to limit the harmful impacts of pokies.