The Melbourne Cup is run today and most Australians will have a bet on the winner. The real winners, of course, will be Tabcorp Holding (TAH) and UNiTAB (UTB) who collect around 16% commission on all pari-mutuel turnover.

Over the last financial year Australians spent $15.7 billion on gambling, that’s about $39 every week for each household. A breakdown of this figure shows that whilst around $5 is bet on racing the rest is mostly gambled on lotto and pokies. The proliferation of poker machines throughout Australia has led to much criticism over their contribution to problem gambling and the Australian example is frequently held up as a warning against widespread deregulation in the UK.

Over 80% of Australians gamble and compulsive gambling has become a major social concern. In 2001 the Prime Minister John Howard said that there was "a deluge of poker machines in Australia - it's one world record of which I am not in the least bit proud." Since then there have been attempts to curb the easy accessibility of these machines and their numbers.

Experts have warned the British government that people are most likely to become addicted to playing slot machines if they are easily available. If playing requires thought, such as planning the journey or making arrangements for the children, then people also consider how much they are willing to gamble. Plans to place the progressive jackpot machines, the most potentially addictive, only in regional casinos would be a break on the impulse gambling that causes problems.

Pokie machines are found in hotels, pubs and clubs as well as in Australia’s casinos. Many properties defined as ‘casinos’ are actually slot parlours offering no more than banks of hundreds of machines. In the main, problem gambling is not generated by the casinos, which are remarkably few and Britain already outnumbers by around 9 to 1, but by the less well supervised pokie venues throughout the country.

Back at Melbourne Cup day, the six-year old Makybe Diva, the first mare in history to win successive Melbourne Cups, won the race in pelting rain. Punters wagered a record $51.3 million on the outcome, an increase of 8% on last year, with the transactions on the TAB peaking at 42,200 a minute.

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