One of my work mates asked me the other day “Hey is playing pokies online bad for you?” while he watched me play online pokies at Ruby Fortune Casino during our lunch break. I thought for a moment and tried to come up with an answer but the only thing that I could muster was “I don’t think so, I’ve been playing pokies online for years and I can’t really think of any bad about it except for the fact that I might play it a bit too often sometimes.”
I went home that evening determined to answer this perplexing question. After a few hours of deep thinking and straining to find answers, I have come up with 5 main reasons of why playing pokies online may be bad for someone.
Reason 1. Less Exercise
Now if you are like me and you don’t get much exercise, going down to the club and playing pokies may make you do a little bit of exercise. The exercise that you get from walking to your car, driving to the club, going to the bar to get a drink, finding a suitable pokie machine to settle down on and pressing the buttons is definitely considered exercise and is really good for you. But one of the major problems of playing pokies in Australia is that payout percentage is fixed and is usually set at around 87%. This leads to a problem of more chances losing, losing faster as well as smaller jackpots. On the other hand, online pokies has an average payout of at least 97% and the jackpots are HUGE as the casino is open for patrons from all countries (effectively making a giant global casino).
Reason 2. Less sociable
Going to the clubs, you usually find the regulars and catch up with mates from time to time. But unfortunately playing online means you’re usually by yourself with the computer and enjoying your own company. The funny thing is that, previously when I played a lot of club pokies, I had much less time catching up with mates because I was playing the pokies most of the time. Nowadays, since I mainly play online, when I go to catch up with mates, I actually spend more time talking to them rather than playing pokies.
Reason 3. Far too convenient
One of the problems with playing pokies online is that you can play anytime and anywhere that you can take a laptop and have internet connection. I do confess, that I occasionally….erm more like regularly, take my laptop to bed and play before bed. It’s convenience is both a curse and blessing. I sometimes even take it to the bathroom, which depending on whom I talk to can be either a curse or a blessing.
At the end of the day, it was a lot tougher to come up with these reasons than I thought. In this day and age with all the technologies like 3D TV, high speed mobile broadband, electric cars, I prefer the newer and more technologically advanced version of the pokies… the truth is I just prefer my winning chances when playing online vs playing at a club.