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There is something wonderfully Australian about growing up on a farm, learning to tell the difference between a quiet paddock and one that is about to become a sheep-related emergency, and eventually deciding that writing is a much better use of your time than chasing livestock. I’m an author, tea-drinker and excellent dancer from Orange NSW, and my relationship with words began long before I ever thought seriously about publishing anything.

I grew up on a farm in Central West NSW, where schoolwork became my favourite excuse to avoid sheepwork. I would happily disappear behind a book or an assignment while pretending that my academic commitment was simply too important to interrupt. Luckily, my parents indulged my enthusiasm for studying, which gave me two things that have stayed with me ever since: a lifelong love of words and an enduring fear of hard labour.

Years later, I studied Media & Communications at the University of Sydney and moved into the world of magazines. It was a natural environment for someone who enjoyed stories, people and the curious little details that make ordinary life interesting. Eventually, I pivoted into corporate communications with all the grace of a D-grade netballer attempting an unexpected backflip. It was not always elegant, but it taught me how powerful communication can be when numbers, human behaviour and entertainment collide.

That last combination is particularly fascinating when looking at Australia’s long relationship with electronic gaming machines, affectionately known by many Australians as pokies. Walk into a registered club or hotel in NSW and you can see an entire ecosystem built around these machines. They are bright, fast and deliberately simple to understand: choose a stake, press a button and wait for the result. For a writer, the psychology of that environment is almost impossible not to notice.

The numbers make the subject even more striking. NSW has one of the largest concentrations of poker machines in Australia, with tens of thousands of electronic gaming machines operating across registered clubs and hotels. Australian gambling statistics have also consistently shown NSW accounting for billions of dollars in annual electronic gaming machine expenditure. In the 2022–23 financial year, NSW poker-machine expenditure was reported at roughly $8.1 billion. That figure is not a prediction of what individual players lose, nor does it mean every dollar represents a single person’s spending; it is a measure of expenditure within the gambling system. For the underlying national data, the Australian Gambling Statistics publications provide a useful reference: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/australian-gambling-statistics

For anyone curious about the entertainment side of the topic, the online world has also created a completely different way to explore information about pokies, game types and casino-style experiences. One example that illustrates this modern direction is the pokies 128: https://thepokies78australia.online/au/pokies. The important distinction, however, is between entertainment and financial expectation. A machine is designed to generate outcomes based on chance, not to provide a reliable income. No amount of confidence, dancing ability or carefully selected tea can turn random results into a guaranteed strategy.

That is where the Australian perspective becomes especially important. Gambling is a legal form of entertainment in Australia, but responsible participation matters. The National Gambling Helpline and Gambling Help Online provide confidential information and support for people who feel that gambling is becoming difficult to control: https://www.gamblinghelponline.org.au/

Personally, I find the contrast rather amusing. My childhood strategy was to hide behind schoolwork whenever sheep needed attention; today, I spend my time hiding behind sentences instead. Somewhere between Orange, Sydney, magazines, corporate communications and a dance floor, I discovered that stories are often most interesting when they reveal something unexpected about everyday life.

Pokies are a perfect example. They are not merely machines with flashing screens. They sit at the intersection of technology, psychology, entertainment, regulation and Australian social culture. Behind every statistic are real venues, real communities and real decisions made by individuals. And behind every good story is a question worth asking.

Perhaps that is why I remain fascinated by numbers almost as much as words. A statistic can tell you that billions of dollars move through an industry, but a story can make you wonder why. A spreadsheet can describe a trend, but a conversation can reveal how people actually experience it. And sometimes, after a long day of writing, researching and contemplating the peculiarities of Australian life, there is only one sensible thing left to do: make a cup of tea, put on some music and prove that my dancing is considerably better than my netball ever was.