Daviidv had the great pleasure of meeting Mr Falkiner while attending the Duty of Care Silent Scream March held at Darling Harbour on Sunday 24 August 2008 and later watching documentaries he has created. Mr Falkiner has developed simple ways to understand how pokies use "near misses" and "starved wheels" to give players the illusion that a win is always about to happen for them, when in practice, the design of the spinning "wheels" and the loading of paying symbols on some wheels and starving of the symbols on other wheels will only give the appearance that a win is likely, while in truth, the real possibility of a win is much lower due to the use of loading and starving of the different wheels. Mr Falkiner explains it is like playing with dice that have the same number of spots on more than one face, or where dice have been weighted unevenly so that one face of the dice will always fall more often than a dice that has not been tampered with.

 

Mr Falkiner also has researched the connection between the images chosen by the manufacturers for the pokies, and the sub-conscious state of mind of a player that would make them want to continue to play a pokie machine even when their rational mind is aware that the losses are mounting and problems due to the gambling are multiplying for them. He discusses the most popular models of the pokies and it becomes very clear what hidden truths are behind their popularity with problem gamblers. The use of images of unicorns, dolphins, purple hearts, Isis : an Egyptian goddess, and Adonis :a Greek God. And the 2 types of gamblers are discussed. The adrenaline pokies player, who moves quickly between machines and looks for the win and to whom the money is a major factor, and to the other type of pokies player, where the time spent on the machine is the main motivation, done to achieve the morphine style pain suppression that is achieved for them by playing the machine. For the latter type of pokies player, the money is not the main purpose for playing, just necessary to enable play to continue. Experts have observed the frustration some players in the 2nd group suffer when a jackpot is won as the machine is frozen until the jackpot is paid to them, and that breaks the trance like state that they are in.

 

Portions of the documentaries created by Mr Falkiner have also been converted to written pages in the "Know the Odds" website, which was created by individuals who understand the pokies crisis and would like to educate people on the real odds.

The Know the Odds website link is below :

 

And to go directly to the explanation of how wheels are loaded and starved, the following link may be used :

 

Unfortunately, at the current time (Sep 2008), Mr Falkiner's findings on the use of powerful, sub conscious images in the design of the most popular and addictive machines is not available on the internet. Daviidv has contacted Mr Falkiner and hopes to be able to release the material as it has explanations to questions many non gambling members of the community have about WHY ! does someone continue to play a machine, often many hours at time, when doing so can cause so much harm to them, and to their familiy and friends.