Of the profits brought in, 70% are from electronic gaming, only 30% from tables! The overheads for running several hundred sets of electronic gaming machines are far cheaper than running a far smaller number of tables, since you don’t have to pay for several croupiers per table (breaks and to keep it open 24 hours), penalty rates for those croups, an Inspector, Pit Boss etc. Am pretty sure that if they could turn it into an all-electronic Main Gaming Floor, they would, keeping tables only for Pearl Room high-rollers.

As for yelling at the ferals in the Two-Up ring and not getting thrown out: depends which guard is walking past at that moment. That said, they’re so short staffed at the moment you’d be likely to have even one on the floor, and their policy dictates there be at least three before they get rid of someone! For a nice long rant about the state of Security at that place, have a read of my blog: http://securityofficer.blogspot.com - in short, the place is becoming increasingly feral with no signs of recovery, there aren’t enough guards to stay on top of things, guards are regularly assaulted, they don’t back up their staff then wonder why nobody wants to work for them anymore!

Pints in Northbridge are $8.50 now.”

No wonder you can’t pay people to move to the West. That kind of price would result in the bar satff being told to get fucked, quite often I guess.

I can agree with you, Sam, on the price of getting sozzled. I regularly pass on tidbits to mates back in WA such as the availability of 11.6% beers (about €1.30 for a 500ml can - that’s less than $2 aussie - or on special for 4 for €3.50) and specials at the local supermarket (this week it is buy two cartons of full strength beer (4.6%) and get one free - total charge is a touch over €13 or less than $20 aussie dollars.

It helps that everyone - corner store, supermarket, wine shop, whatever - is allowed to sell alcohol. Competition is good for keeping prices down. It also helps the consumer out as I do not have to worry about the local bottlo shutting on a Saturday night at some ridiculously early hour, particularly in summer (as I experienced during a Christmas stop in Perth last year).

In my city (Lyon) it is possible to buy alcohol cheaply in a bar or nightclub pretty much round the clock, except Sunday nights - though I am sure there would be somewhere open if I bothered to look for it. The beer is cheap, the spirits are not too badly priced and the bar staff are beaut to boot.

For really cheap drinking, however, you have to head east. I was in Romania a couple of months ago and me and four mates put the equivalent of about $80 on the bar at a nightclub (everything was pre-paid - very efficient). We started at about 9pm and danced and drank until about 3am when we all started getting tired. Despite having had a drink in my hand almost the entire night (the others too) we still had more than half of the money resting un-spent. As it was all pre-paid and we wouldn’t be getting it back anyhow, we blew the rest on the three best bottles of champers we could find in the place and left the rest as a tip (about $10 worth).

And yet pints in Northbridge are probably still $6…..

At first I was quite guarded, unconvincingly stuttering a few pathetic watery points about the responsible service of gaming rules.

Nowdays I don’t much around, I boom to the greenhorn journalist that they should phone a newsagent: in the mystified silence which follows I point out that if playing a poker machine the gambling is carried out in an environment in which minors are fiercely unwelcome, and one has a very good chance of a win of some sort (albiet usually a form of loss mitigation, rather than jackpot win).

Newsagents however, offer gambling products for which the chances of winning are as remote as the chance of being struck by lightning: endless scratchies, lotto etc, often sold by unsupervised teenagers, with little controls to prevent minors making gambling purchases, all in full public view of the street, sometimes in open kiosks in shopping malls…. etc etc etc…

About here the greenhorn journalist realises they have been “had” on this issue. Deprived of fodder for their “story” in the form of a killer quote from a publican, the story, unable to be a hatchet job on pubs, mutates NOT into a hatchet job on newsagents, but into a bland bit of waffle about the good works the salvos or somesuch do among the community of problem gamblers.