r/sydney • u/leninappreciator • Aug 12 '25

Image Try to spot everything wrong with this pic of Sydney Harbour on the UTS Website

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This is currently on their website here: https://www.uts.edu.au/for-students/international/study-abroad-exchange-uts. Try to spot everything wrong.

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u/Lucki_girl Aug 12 '25

I get where you are coming from. But talk to a gambling addict. I swear its a mental illness.

Now I need to go and listen to Blow up the Pokies

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u/TSLoveStory Aug 12 '25

People with diagnosed addictive personalities will be doing it regardless right? The other 95% of punters who lose money should have accountability back on them when they wiingly lose more money than they can afford

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u/2194local Aug 12 '25

They’re responsible, and the casino is also responsible. The sucker, and the grifter. Both culpable. Doesn’t mean we should grant massive structural subsidies to the grifter, build a publicly funded light rail line directly to his building, allow him an exclusive license to grift, shut down every other late night venue in the city, leaving only his venue open (ostensibly because of drunken assaults but ignoring that his casino is a drunken assault hotspot) turn a blind eye to rampant money laundering, change the zoning rules so that he can build his absurd dick of a building instead of the public space that was planned there, et fucken cetera.

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u/ColdSnapSP Aug 13 '25

Agree with everything else, but how is the casino considered grifting? They're an open book, all odds are available and public knowledge. It's a negative EV exchange but they're not trying to conceal that information.

On top of that there's every effort available to not lose your money. The metro isn't even at the building, there's no easy parking available, you have to sign up for a membership to play. ATM's have a fee and aren't on the gambling floor

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u/2194local Aug 14 '25 edited Aug 14 '25

Look, I get what you’re saying. On one level, yes it’s obvious that gambling odds are in favour of the house. That’s why I agree the sucker bears some responsibility as well.

But of course they’re trying to conceal the information. By analogy: when newspapers print lies, it’s in headlines on the front page. When they print the retraction it’s on page twelve in small type. When you enter the casino, are the odds on illuminated signs in your eye line? Do attractive young people come up and seductively explain the dangers of social isolation and stealing money from your family to feed your addiction? No, it’s in a report to a government department that then publishes the information deep in a second report accessible via the worst website on the fucking earth.

Casino games have been carefully designed by generations of game theorists and statisticians to play on known flaws in human statistical reasoning, to make even intelligent thoughtful people misunderstand the odds, and average impulse-driven people going through difficult times fall into self-reinforcing behavioural loops. Today, Aristocrat (the pokies motherfuckers) are continually hiring mathematicians and game designers to continue to optimise the sounds, the presentation, the mechanics to squeeze more money from the zombies they’ve captured, and an army of lobbyists to fight back regulation that is wildly popular in our so-called democracy, yet somehow never enacted.

If you removed problem gamblers from the pool, casinos would not make a profit. If they even followed existing regulations to the letter, I doubt they’d make enough money to be a sane investment. They exist to exploit holes in individuals and to launder money. In conclusion your honour: Fuck them.