I hear you, man. It's crazy how many pokies there are in New South Wales. And don't even get me started on the rest of the country. I mean, 14,743 pokies in New Zealand is still a lot, even if it's not as bad as NSW.
But you know what? It's not just about the number of pokies. It's about the people who are affected by them. I used to have a serious problem with gambling myself, and I know how hard it can be to break free from that addiction. That's why I'm so grateful for sites like bro138emas.com. They allow you to gamble savely and with way less risks than regular casinos.

64,000 pokies in the state of NSW is just insane.

Here’s the figures from across the ditch, for the entire country:

As at 31 December 2021, we have 14,743 pokie machines in 1,050 pubs, clubs and TABs around New Zealand. We also have 3,056 pokie machines in our six casinos.

My province of New Brunswick had an epidemic of Video Lottery Terminals (VLT’s) in the ‘90’s.. absolutely out of control.. every convenience store.. any small business that wanted to run them could have up to 4 without a permit. Ordinary people who had not so much as played a Bingo card in the past we’re losing everything. Go get a loaf of bread and drop $200 along the way.

I got sucked in for a few broke and drunken years before I finally moved out of province and left that shit behind.

The states have figured out a way to get a bunch of money out of peoples pockets without calling it a tax. And it makes tons of money for the casino owners and their stock holders. And like the lottery and other games of chance, most of the people playing are people who can least afford it. At least with legal gambling some of the money comes back to the community instead of all going into criminal activities. Kind of the same thought process as legalizing weed. People are going to do it anyway, may as well use some of the profit as a tax base.

Online gambling advertising is disgusting and way over the top in the US. There's even a commercial featuring a guy sitting on a toilet with his phone in his hand, placing a bet, while the announcer prattles on about how easy it is to bet anywhere.

Gambling and organized crime have been in bed with each other for what seems like forever.

Forget NSW. All gambling needs to be heavily trimmed.
One could start with draconian limits on wagers, covering both stakes and payouts.