Year 12 English Oral Gambling Ban

Good morning/ good afternoon everyone my name is John and today I would like to talk to you about Chris. Chris was a 23 year old man, who up until about 5 years ago lived a totally normal life. He lived an average childhood in an average house. At the age of 18 he moved out of his home to live in an apartment with his friends. On his 19th birthday his friends took him out for some fun, and that’s when everything changed. They went to a casino, and for the first time since in his life, Chris made a bet, then a second, a third and a fourth. Each time, thinking about all those ads he saw on TV and read in the paper growing up. He thought “wouldn’t it be great if I won something”. Little did he reaslise how unrealistic that scenario would be…and why not? It looked like people seemed to win everyday. (PAUSE) Just over 5 years later Chris committed suicide. He was diagnosed with overwhelming depression due to an unpayable debt made by the gambling problem he developed all those years ago. You see, Chris grew up in an age where the advertising of gambling had no regulations. Tattersalls and Intralot were able to advertise the splendor of gambling and Chris kept thinking he would win big. Then THE NEXT TIME would fulfill all his wishes. Then it became THE NEXT TIME would solve all his problems. Then he though desperately that THE NEXT TIME would pay off all his debts. Or THE NEXT TIME, or the next. He could not stop thinking that he was going to win. And how could he? He was only ever shown that he couldn’t lose, that the next time he would win…but he didn’t. He never did.

I believe that the advertising of gambling in the media should be banned. I am not here on a crusade against gambling itself, ill leave that to the politicians, I just want to talk about how we are allowing this disease to be so freely advertised in all forms of our media. In Australia over 70% of people gamble each year, and over 40% of these people gamble regularly, at least three or more times a