Poker machines are designed to celebrate wins but stay silent on losses. A new project aims to disrupt that psychological design by introducing a simple losing sound – and to push for legislative reform.
And if you want the issue to be debated in parliament you can sign a petition linked in the article.
More likely that change.org provides information about who signed (including emails unless opted out) to the person running the petition. Information gathering from informal petitions is more likely to undermine trust and make people less likely to sign, but then you can’t build a database of people sympathetic to some cause and spam them afterwards.
The “20,000 petition signatures” feels like straight up manipulation - there’s no magic number to force a debate at parliament, and as MisterFrog@aussie.zone points out, an official petition would be needed for it to be tabled. If an official petition with a lot of signatures is tabled, that is a signal to politicians that the public care about it, and can overcome lobbying in the other direction and apathy, so it increases the chance a bill is put up for debate.
This comes from an ad agency; they don’t list any gambling companies as clients, but I’m sure they’d find information like a list of people who signed useful for something.
That said, it’s still a good idea to regulate in a losing sound if there is no political will to do anything more drastic. Better yet would be to require linking play to a one-per-person card, and having hourly, daily, monthly and annual loss limits per card, after which the owner cannot allow any more losses for that card holder.
Why did they start a change.org petition, it specifically states on the government website those aren’t accepted
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions/House_of_Representatives_Petitions/Frequently_asked_questions
Obviously it’ll only actually get attention through popular demand either way, but still
This may not be the case to petitions presented to the Senate but I could be wrong.
This is just a guess. Perhaps they chose change.org because they are likely to get more signatories than on a govt petition site.
More likely that change.org provides information about who signed (including emails unless opted out) to the person running the petition. Information gathering from informal petitions is more likely to undermine trust and make people less likely to sign, but then you can’t build a database of people sympathetic to some cause and spam them afterwards.
The “20,000 petition signatures” feels like straight up manipulation - there’s no magic number to force a debate at parliament, and as MisterFrog@aussie.zone points out, an official petition would be needed for it to be tabled. If an official petition with a lot of signatures is tabled, that is a signal to politicians that the public care about it, and can overcome lobbying in the other direction and apathy, so it increases the chance a bill is put up for debate.
This comes from an ad agency; they don’t list any gambling companies as clients, but I’m sure they’d find information like a list of people who signed useful for something.
That said, it’s still a good idea to regulate in a losing sound if there is no political will to do anything more drastic. Better yet would be to require linking play to a one-per-person card, and having hourly, daily, monthly and annual loss limits per card, after which the owner cannot allow any more losses for that card holder.