I’ve been in Melbourne this week, at the World Congess of Cardiology.

Melbourne was cold and windy, as you might expect.  There are some mitigating features: trams, passenger trains hauled by locomotives (even if they are all Diesels), and I was once again struck by how much room and space there appears to be in near-Central Melbourne, compared with Sydney.

However there is also the casino.  This is truly horrible.  As well as the casino itself, there are at least four huge self-proclaimed luxury hotels attached to them, and they are all glitzy and to my mind deeply unattractive.  Even if you like “glitz and glam”, the concept of exploiting people’s complete lack of sense is morally dubious, to say the least.  No-one who has the slightest appreciation of the arithmetic of statistics can fail to understand that casinos or poker machines (aka One-armed Bandits) are a simple way for owners of casinos or clubs to make huge amounts of money from the gullible public.  The whole industry that has been allowed to grow up around this exploitation is appalling.  I understand that ideologically people should be allowed to make their own choices.  Nevertheless this transfer of wealth from the poor (who do most of the gambling) to the rich (who own the clubs and gambling houses), without even a decent amount of government taxation to reclaim some of the revenue to the state is definitely a case for government intervention.

The conference was good.