It was like early 90s, 1992, I think, when they first came to Australia.
I remember because it was just after my mum died.
We’d go to the
pub for drinks on a Friday night ... you know, me and the girls from work.
We’d sit around the table and discuss how stupid our boss was.
And we’d drink, you know.
So that was kind of a nice way to end the week.
Well, one night we walked in, and there were these machines that we’d never seen before.
They were just lined up against the wall where the stage used to be.
These machines ... they had screens on them and numbers and cute pictures on them.
And I thought they were just like mechanical toys, you know, like video games.
And so, we gave it a go. I mean, everybody did.
Chuck a buck in and waste five minutes kind of thing.
It was just a stupid thing that people did at the pub.
But I just watched this happen more and more over time
and I thought, ‘This is actually pretty boring.’
Instead of us just sitting around the table talking like we used to,
they just sat around these machines.
It’s all they wanted to do.
And we didn’t talk anymore.
And so I just sort of stopped going.
I remember the first time I went back there by myself.
It was 25 years ago, but I remember.
I had an argument with my husband. I don’t even know what about really. Something dumb.
And I just wanted to kind of brush it off.
And so where do you go?
It was the one place I could go out where it was kind of socially acceptable to go on my own.
Like, I could just sit around and have a play on these machines... and it wouldn’t be that weird.
And well ... I won! I won like 190 something bucks that first time.
And I was amazed that you could actually win money,
that that could happen.
I mean, that was it really, looking back ...
Because from then on, it only took like
five or six weeks for me to be there every single day.
And I joked to myself, in those first weeks, you know,
that this was kind of like my job now because I would just go in and win.
And I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I don’t have to go to work anymore.’
For a time, you really believe that you’re in this kind of community.
Like the people at the pokies are actually your friends.
But it’s ... it's a fake community really.
And they’re not your friends because for you to win,
somebody else has got to lose.
Lots of people have to lose.
By about 1995-96 I did start hearing about people losing their savings, maxing out credit cards,
losing everything, you know, their houses ... on poker machines!
And you’re sitting there, in the same place as the rest of them, next to them even,
and you are thinking, 'That’ll never happen to me'
as if I’m way too smart for that.
And then you start losing of course.
Most of the time you’re losing actually.
And often there’s not even a jackpot big enough to win back what you’ve lost ...
and you’re still there.
And that’s when you finally realise that you’re in serious trouble.
I’d be lying awake in bed at night, and I’d have this bloody music in my head.
Like, you know, the pokies music.
And it would just go around and ‘round and ‘round.
And when you finally do fall asleep ... the dreams!
But even then, after all of that, no one ever called it an addiction.
I mean, these machines were built, purpose-built to catch people,
to mesmerise, to hypnotise, to mind bend.
The way their bells and whistles go off and the way they do
big ringing sounds, the bright lights ...
But we didn’t know that.
The day my husband left, I remember the relief, you know.
I didn’t have to sneak around so much anymore.
At the heart of my addiction, my husband didn’t matter.
My friends, my own children ... they didn’t matter.
Even the night that my husband left ... I knew I would kind of have to ‘feed the beast’.
But I only had 85 cents left in my bank account.
So ... I went upstairs and into my daughter’s room ...
And it was just sitting there.
And this little voice came from behind me ...
And
I just kind of panicked.
And then there I was, on my hands and knees, picking up five and 10 cent pieces off the ground.
And my seven-year-old daughter is out of bed helping me,
handing me fistfuls of change.
And that was it. I just lost it.
I bolted out of there, ran down to the garage, and just sort of sat there for ages.