On December 25, 2007 the Rev Ray Galea was converted. Formerly a St George Dragons supporter for over 40 years, he announced to his congregation that he was changing allegiances to the South Sydney Rabbitohs because of their decision to remove poker machines from their leagues club.
The leader of Multicultural Bible Ministry, Rooty Hill believes this is one way Christians can send a strong anti-gambling message to the NSW government and the community.
"The reason for my conversion was simple. On December 20 the South Sydney rugby league board decided to remove their poker machines on a trial basis. Finally there was a club who cared about their patrons and supporters," Mr Galea says.
Mr Galea, who was a social worker for three years, says he was often confronted with the profound damage to families caused by pokies.
"I know one man who lost each of his five houses to gambling and now he has nothing to pass on to his family. It is made worse by the accessibility in pubs, clubs and casinos," he says.
"I can't understand how the diggers who laid their lives down for our nation could return and establish RSL clubs which in NSW are mostly funded by pokies and so destroy the very lives their mates died for."
Mr Galea, who is becoming a paying member of the Souths leagues club, is calling on all rugby league supporters and non-rugby league supporters alike to make a difference.
"I want them to speak up for the many families destroyed by the pokies and to officially join South Sydney in the hope of encouraging other clubs to do likewise," he says.
"Lets do to pokies what Wilberforce and his gang did to slavery and keep this on the public agenda. I am not expecting it to be the end of pokies in NSW but getting them out of clubs and pubs would be a great start."
Mr Galea is asking people to email South Sydney and express support in their move.
Mr Galea, who has followed the Dragons since he was five years old and was crying the day after St George lost the grand final to Melbourne in 1999, admits it will take time for his heart to catch up to his head.
"Nevertheless I mean what I say: go you Rabbits!"
The parish perspective
Down the road from South Sydney Leagues Club, where Hollywood star Russell Crowe dreams his band, and many others, will replace what is effectively a pokie warehouse, the local Anglican church runs a community centre and preschool for the residents of Waterloo.
Minister the Rev Paul Dew has no doubt that Souths' plan to rid the Leagues Club of pokies will have a positive impact on one of Sydney's most disadvantaged communities.
"That club is a soul-destroying place," says Mr Dew. "The second floor is just wall-to-wall poker machines."
He has witnessed firsthand the devastating impact on some of the most vulnerable members of his flock.
"One bloke gets his dole payment and within one hour he has put it through the poker machines," says Mr Dew. "He has been living on the street for 27 years because he has done that."
This is not an isolated story. Mr Dew says that, while issues of homelessness and addiction are complex, he works with "numbers of people' who "will be in a better state if there is less gambling'.
Sydney is the pokie capital of the world. The statistics are frightfully spinetingling. Australia accounts for 21 per cent of the world's high-intensity poker machines.
NSW has the highest per capita number of poker machines in Australia " more than seven times the per capita rate of the USA. Most significantly, poker machines contribute 42 per cent of all money lost by problem gamblers. It is estimated that over 160,000 people in our state have a moderate-to-high risk of being problem gamblers.
On the flip side, about 10 per cent of NSW's taxation revenue is from the gambling industry. Eliminating gambling revenue would leave a $1.5 billion hole in the NSW budget. So what, realistically, can be done to wean our government off the gambling industry?
"It does feel like we are crying in the wilderness," says Mr Dew. "If government listened to the church's voice, we would all be better off."
State opposition responds
Mike Baird, the NSW Shadow Minister for Finance, says the State Opposition is listening and says he is authoring an internal report to tackle the issue. It will be finalised within weeks.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the impacts of problem gambling have been underestimated," he says.
Mr Baird says his first priority is to ensure transparency is restored to State Government decisions around gambling.
One significant factor is the distorting effect of both the hotel and gaming industries' massive party donations. A report in the Sydney Morning Herald on September 20 revealed that that a substantial proportion of the NSW Labor Party’s election advertising war chest came from Hotel industry donations.
Mr Baird acknowledged to SC that the NSW Liberals are ‘not as pure as the driven snow' either and that a "significant proportion' of their election spend came from similar sources. Nevertheless he expressed a commitment to tackling the vexed issue of party donations if the Liberals won government.
"I am seriously looking at a public funding model for elections," he says. "This will lead to far better outcomes on problem gambling. Currently vested interests are influencing policy outcomes."
While both major parties are making noises about capping or reducing poker machine ratios, this must be assessed in the context of recent decisions to expand other forms of gambling.
In September, Keno lottery machines were allowed in all hotels. About 1,000 pubs are expected to take up the offer.
The following month, the Iemma Government cut a multi-million-dollar deal allowing a huge expansion of Star City Casino. There are currently 210 gaming tables at the casino. This number could increase to as many as 350.
Potentially most disturbing is the claim made at a Green-run forum that the Labor Party accepted a $100,000 donation from Star City Casino only months before this decision.
Powerful vested interests are also muddying the waters around gambling rates. Despite claims from ClubsNSW that problem gambling is "dramatically declining', no evidence exists that current NSW Government strategies are working to reduce problem gambling.
In contrast, in South Australia, where the churches and anti-gambling campaigners have achieved significant concessions, there is hard evidence that that a 14-point action plan has actually cut gambling rates: in that state, the number of people gambling has fallen from 76 per cent in 2001 to 70 per cent in 2006.
While it is chastening to reflect on why the churches in NSW have not been heard, Paul Dew says local Anglican congregations must take a proactive role.
"[St Saviour's, Redfern] has a particular interest in the local community. Our focus is on helping the community grow in the love of Christ" I believe the Lord can heal people of their addictions, his Spirit is an enabling spirit… we just need to be salt in the community."
Idle worship
Many Sydney pastors are understandably reluctant to speak about the extent of gambling addiction amongst their congregations because of pastoral sensitivities. Yet research shows that at least one in 20 Australians have a problem gambler in their immediate family, so proportionally there would be thousands of Sydney Anglicans amongst them.
Indeed, SC has heard enough to paint the picture of gambling addiction in our churches: "You'll be speaking to someone and their explanation of their circumstances won't quite gel," explained one pastor.
"A married couple will both have highly paid jobs but they don't own their own home and are struggling to make ends meet… Or perhaps they move frequently but always to a cheaper suburb. Invariably you discover that there is a gambling issue."
So how should ministers address the topic from their pulpits? The problem is that there is no Bible passage that condemns gambling. In fact when Proverbs talks about luck, it says God is in control. Does this not imply that God directs the outcome of games of chance?
"Christian opponents of gambling are often not very good at explaining their opposition, because they are used to proving right and wrong by use of divine commands; but in this case, they cannot," agrees Moore College ethics lecturer Andrew Cameron.
For Dr Cameron the chief moral problem with all forms of gambling is systemic. "Why would a person want to gain by exploiting human weakness and draining needy families?"
He says gambling's "indiscriminate redistribution of wealth" is at odds with the Bible's ethical principle of love. But shouldn't preachers also preach against the greedy human heart that underpins gambling?
The Rev Dr Gary Koo has come to the conclusion that preaching against greed will not hit the mark with gamblers.
"While a chief motivation behind gambling is material greed," he says, "what is distinctive about gambling is that it places faith in luck. This is borne out by Victorian research that showed that the most common reason for gambling was the possibility of getting lucky.
"I'd argue that placing faith in luck denies the providential goodness of God. This is why gambling is sinful."
Nevertheless, Dr Koo says a bigger problem amongst Anglicans is that "we are not angry enough' about the injustices caused by the gambling industry.
"For many of us gambling is just part of the Australian culture and the Christian community has better things to be spending its time and resources on,” he says.
"This must not be the case. Gambling is a form of idolatry that is ruining people's lives and destroying our society."
