One Last Spin: The Power and Peril of the Pokies

Description

A poignant and compassionate work of literary journalism that tackles Australia's most controversial pastime. Almost 200,000 poker machines sing and flash in pubs, clubs, and casinos in every corner of the country. They're highly complex devices, their components designed by mathematicians, musicians, animators, and ergonomic experts. They're also widely considered the most harmful form of gambling, the cause of the majority of gambling addictions. So how did Australia evolve into a pokie nation? With startlingly candid interviews from gambling addicts, politicians, manufacturers, neuroscientists, counsellors, anti-gambling campaigners, and gambling advocates, One Last Spin explores how the machines work to hook people in, and the vicious fight being waged to evict them from the country's social life. It is a confronting tale about the human cost of addiction, of governments pandering to corporate interests, and of the insidious power of the industry's PR spin.

Drew Rooke is a freelance journalist and author whose work has been widely published, including in The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Kill Your Darlings, and Overland. His first book, One Last Spin- the power and peril of the pokies, was published by Scribe in 2018. He is a 2021 Our Watch Fellow.