Man Doing A Poo At Work Takes The Opportunity To Put Some Bets On Because That's A Totally Normal Thing To Do And Online Betting Isn't A Cancer On Society

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A 29-year-old man has today spent his lunch break on the toilet, quietly moving a portion of his wages to an offshore tax haven via an Irish bookkeeper.

It is Melbourne Cup Day, and like millions of Australians, he is gambling because that is what you do. He has an online betting account, a small savings balance and the kind of desperation that others can smell.

Sitting in the shitters at work, the man placed twelve bets in ten minutes. He backed a horse he couldn’t pronounce, a donkey running in Geelong and a table tennis player competing somewhere in Eastern Europe. He lost most of them before he wiped.

“Just a bit of fun,” he said.

Economists say this behaviour now defines the modern Australian condition. The country’s love of a flutter has been digitised and outsourced. Every week billions of local dollars are siphoned offshore to European companies registered in tax-friendly jurisdictions, where the profits are quietly reclassified as “intellectual property licensing costs” and never seen again.

The nation’s major sporting codes, which provide the content that fuels the addiction, are left to fight over scraps disguised as sponsorships and integrity fees. Wagering advertisements run every few minutes on television, radio and social media, each one promising entertainment while extracting what is left of someone's labour.

Public health experts warn that gambling harm is now indistinguishable from daily life. The damage is slow, private and unmeasured. It rarely ends in protest or policy change. It ends in another deposit, another bonus bet, another picture of your flaccid, meek cock sent to an inducement manager to procure more bonus bets, another man scrolling on the toilet telling himself it’s all fine.

If the same amount of capital were being drained to another country under a different banner, there would be uproar. But because this one comes dressed in humour and racing colours, it is treated as culture. Because the companies are European, domiciled in tax havens and promoted by smiling Australians, it is tolerated. When it's really not. Online betting is a cancer on our society. People look at Australians and their online betting like we look at Americans with their guns. It's ridiculous and one day, our children would be shocked we even tolerated it in such a docile manner.

By the time the man returns to his desk he has lost $212 and half an hour of paid time. He opens the app again before clocking out, to check if his account has been credited with a “limp boy loyalty reward.”

It has. Five dollars.

“Bit of fun,” he said.

More to come.