[Uninen]

Here in Finland slot machines (and most types of legalized gambling) are controller by a government-owned nonprofit that distributes the revenue to various charities. I think that's the best way to run these kind of things if they need to exist.

[mauvehaus]

In a lot of US states, lottery proceeds go to education. The problem, of course, is that dollars and euros are fungible, and governments can and do reduce the tax contributions to education commensurately.

[kube-system]

Sort of. It really depends. Education funding in the US often comes from several entirely independent sources, with differing constituents, differing motivations, and various rules on allocations. It's not like it's one big bucket with one entity that has the ultimate ability to reallocate.

[filoleg]

Yeah, it is pretty complex and differs heavily by state. I know that in GA, for example, lottery proceeds go towards HOPE/Zell Miller scholarship fund for college students (which I am immensely grateful for, as it funded most of my own college education). Though, sadly, I've been reading over the past few years that it is on its way to drying out :(

[vintermann]

For a short while, Norway had extremely liberal slot machine laws. They were in every supermarket, post office, anywhere. There was (and is) a state-run gambling monopoly, but slot machines weren't covered by it - they were considered a continuation of Payazzo games, a form of very-low stakes skill-based gambling machines that charities had long been allowed to operate. So charities got to operate slot machines.

Some may say the charities got just as addicted as the gamblers. I remember in particular in a TV debate, where Thorvald Stoltenberg, respected former minister and president of the Norwegian Red Cross, declared that although he realized the harm they caused, he had decided to defend slot machines "no matter what" because they were such an important income source for his organization. He said it as if it was some selfless commitment.

Eventually, though, gambling addiction became a too big and obvious problem to ignore, and the gambling monopoly took over, sharply reducing the numbers of machines and (supposedly) making them less aggressive. There were some concessions to the charities that lost income as a result of it (which, as I recall, screwed over the few charities that had taken a principled stand against slot machines).

[hsbauauvhabzb]

What’s the thought process as to why they exist? What would actually happen if the government mandated that they were illegal to operate?

In australia, slot machines are controlled by organisations which are effectively white collar gangsters. The NSW organisation is currently suing an ex-employee who worked in anti-corruption and subsequently whistle-blew on unactioned corruption reports, while he’s on his deathbed with terminal cancer.

[rippercushions]

Context: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/25/clubs...

My "favorite" part, for lack of a better adjective, is how ClubsNSW (the slot machine organization) successfully got a federal court order telling the whistleblower to stop "intimidating, harassing" the poor, innocent ClubsNSW, while at the same time the home of the guy who interviewed the whistleblower gets firebombed, twice!

[hsbauauvhabzb]

To be fair, friendlyjordies has pissed off a lot of people, I think as far as motives go, there are plenty of likely and unrelated parties who would be capable of doing that.

[simlevesque]

> What’s the thought process as to why they exist? What would actually happen if the government mandated that they were illegal to operate?

> In australia, slot machines are controlled by organisations which are effectively white collar gangsters.

The thought process is that if it wasn't government run, it would be ran by actual gangsters with much less accountability.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

As opposed to not letting anyone run it, I mean.

[p1necone]

I suspect the reality is that preventing illegal gambling via enforcement would be basically impossible to do effectively without spending a significant portion of the police budget on it. Allowing heavily regulated legal gambling is more like the lesser of two evils.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

I’m curious why you think that. There will always be illegal casinos, but the interest in slot machines would surely not be large enough to reach prohibition level behaviours?

But I’m also unsure how I feel about prohibiting a behaviour, given the whole slippery slope article etc

[jamesfinlayson]

It'd still be run illegally - I'm sure in Queensland there were illegal casinos in pub districts before pokies were legalised in the... 1980s I want to say (or maybe early 1990s). They probably offered gambling on credit and other stuff that is now illegal (not to say it still doesn't happen but it'd be very uncommon).

[umvi]

> Here in Finland slot machines (and most types of legalized gambling) are controller by a government-owned nonprofit that distributes the revenue to various charities. I think that's the best way to run these kind of things if they need to exist.

US state governments use the "it's for a good cause" justification all the time as well. But... it's still addictive and exploitive of vulnerable populations (especially lotto)

[muti]

In New Zealand you will find slot machines in many pubs and hotels, they are very accessible to the public. They are also operated by charitable foundations and claim they do a net good by donating the profits to the community.

I despise the model just like lotteries, it's a regressive tax and the lions share of profit comes from those with addictions.

[abadger9]

I've been to finland a few times, it's crazy to see people play slots at the front/back of the grocery story at 1 pm.