Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I was sorely disappointed, that's not what I associate with pokies at all.
And then all this talk about "NSW"
Yeah, not nearly as titillating as it seemed.
Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
51–60 of 83 posts
Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it's fun to have diminutive version of many words. And because it differentiates us from boorish Americans - or as they are also known in Oz, seppos.
Surely it's to differentiate you from the English. We may not be a commonwealth, but surely our origin in common with Australia grants us that much?
The English/British and their media are not as jarringly foreign as Americans, because Australian culture and language diverged from English culture much later than American did.
There's also 5x fewer of them, so they are less of a threat to our minority culture than Americans are - Americans don't realise just how dominant American English is in the Anglosphere and how hard it is to resist.
Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a non-addicted, casual gambler (I recreationally play 1-2 no limit poker at casinos once in a blue moon), I'd hate to see casinos simply disappear, but yea they tend to be kind of sad places full of the people who can least afford to lose the money in their pocket. Don't know what the solution is. If you outlaw it, you're getting rid of a benign source of casual fun for folks like me who can keep it under control,…
Society pays a pretty high price for that casual fun for people like you. Maybe go see a movie instead.
Unfortunately, there's not a livable version of society where we "ban" gambling. Doing so just pushes it underground, and therefore inevitably into the hands of some kind of organized crime. I imagine the best compromise would be to create a state monopoly and make it easily (but not universally) available, while also trying to push some social stigma against it. Unfortunately for harmful vices like this, the anglosphere (and I assume a lot of other places) tends to oscillate between prohibition and hands-off marketism.
We are seeing similar with sports betting and marijuana in the US. Less than ten years ago, these were major crimes basically everywhere. Now, in large swaths of the country, you can't drive a mile without seeing a billboard for one or the other. Making them illegal again is not the answer, but we don't seem to have a standard way of shading things like this in any meaningful way.
(By the way, I'm not against people smoking a little weed or betting on football, but plenty of people do get momentum with both and it can have harmful effects for them. I believe the industries pushing both behaviors are in large part profiting off this small group of heavy "users". )
Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#54Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#55what is it with Australians and having the cheesiest names for everything? pokies. electricians are sparkies. bikkie. spewie. budgie. brekky. it's like a bunch of babytalk only it's said by literally everyone.
Australian slang represents something important about Australian values - mateship, the Anzac spirit, a fair go. Aussies don't talk like poms, because they aren't like poms.
Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#56what is it with Australians and having the cheesiest names for everything? pokies. electricians are sparkies. bikkie. spewie. budgie. brekky. it's like a bunch of babytalk only it's said by literally everyone.
Because it's fun to have diminutive version of many words. And because it differentiates us from boorish Americans - or as they are also known in Oz, seppos.
> seppos
seppo is short for septic, which is short for septic tank, which rhymes with yank, and yank is a word used for any American. And although yank comes from yankee, we mostly don’t discriminate between north and south so it is a general term.
Like all words in Aussie only context can make it insulting - it can just as easily be used in a friendly way. Apparently the word seppo is not used much, maybe mostly by older Ockers. I’m summarising a long discussion on the word and usage that goes into more detail: https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-australians-call-a...
> what is it with Australians and having the cheesiest names for everything
It is just language diverging memetically. A small part of it is signalling you are not a stuck up snob.
The wannabe hoity-toity “I’m better than you”-types try and change their accent and word usage to match some “educated” upperclassish snobby accent and then they speak down to others and try to correct their English. Some of the snobby accent is memetic - due to hanging around a particular social group.
The accusation of baby-talk and cheesy comes across as aggressively stuck-up to me.
I’m from New Zealand and it is fun to see some snobby bitch get drunk and then hear her accent shift to some bogan accent(≈hick drawl) from their childhood. I’ve seen the same thing with some suits in a bimmer in a wealthy suburb change their whole demeanour to rural farmer-types given circumstances. In New Zealand farmers are often wealthy and their kids often get expensive private education and move into professional jobs.
Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've played enough poker (and similar games) on computer (against bots, no real money) to know that 1) I am quite bad at assessing the expected value of my moves; 2) I am quite... what's the English word for someone who gets way too excited from the thrill of gambling and forgoes the caution? "Hasardeux" is French for it, but I don't think "hazardous" has that sense in English? Anyhow, I do know quite well that were…
> what's the English word for someone who gets way too excited from the thrill of gambling and forgoes the caution? "Hasardeux" is French for it, but I don't think "hazardous" has that sense in English? The best I can come up with is "adrenaline junky", but that isn't specific to gambling; I feel like people use that to refer to people who like base jumping or something.
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Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've played enough poker (and similar games) on computer (against bots, no real money) to know that 1) I am quite bad at assessing the expected value of my moves; 2) I am quite... what's the English word for someone who gets way too excited from the thrill of gambling and forgoes the caution? "Hasardeux" is French for it, but I don't think "hazardous" has that sense in English? Anyhow, I do know quite well that were…
> what's the English word for someone who gets way too excited from the thrill of gambling and forgoes the caution? "Hasardeux" is French for it, but I don't think "hazardous" has that sense in English? The best I can come up with is "adrenaline junky", but that isn't specific to gambling; I feel like people use that to refer to people who like base jumping or something.
Well, since we're all already in pedantic grammarian territory: That would be "junkie", since it is a noun identifying an addicted person.
In contrast, "junky" is an adjective to describe a generally bad state or quality. "Junky adrenaline" is probably medical waste.
Ex: "It's not safe to travel in a junky car driven by a junkie. Worse still to sail on a junkie's junky junk."
Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think degen is the common term that used here. Sir, I think you mixed up your HN account with 4Chan...
"degenerate fuckin gambler" is a common term predating 4chan https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/degenerate#Adjective >(of a gambler) Addictive or compulsive.
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Re: Don't bet on the joys of pokies (2011)
#60Some real australiana here. To paint the picture for those who aren't familiar, the industry is enormous and, in NSW in particular, extremely powerful. For a while (still? Not sure) in Brisbane, for example, you couldn't enter a bar after 1:30am unless it was a casino. In NSW the sports clubs, of which there is one in every midsized town, have busses which circulate the retirement communities and bring the elderly to…
Yep, until folks see it they cannot understand the scale of these things.
It isn't just Crown in Melbourne, which for most folks is more like the traditional Vegas casino. All my local RSL's/Pubs are all about 50% pokie machines.
And yep, that complimentary bus is not there to bring the old folks in for a pot and parma.
Funnily enough, while it isn't the most pervasive, in New Zealand is where I have seen folks that are betting the highest. The wave of depression that hits you when see a lot of people all down on their luck betting $10 a spin every few seconds is just wild! I mean, yeah the Christchurch winter is bad but not that bad!