This seminar presents a recent and comprehensive analysis of how Aboriginal people living in remote areas of the Northern Territory access and use poker machines in a large gaming venue in Darwin. Recent gambling research that focuses on Indigenous gambling tends towards determining the prevalence of ‘problem gambling’ within Indigenous communities or alternatively provides public health approaches that look at risk and protective aspects of Indigenous gambling. However, these approaches fail to provide an understanding of the how, when, and why remote Indigenous people play poker machines. It is this information that is critical to providing insights into developing harm-minimization strategies and public health messages that are relevant to their intended audience. The findings of this research are based on intensive fieldwork in a large commercial gambling venue in Darwin.

The findings outlined in the paper describe the complex social, economic and political processes at play within the gambling venue. The paper will also contrast these findings to some of the research that I have previously presented on card games in Maningrida, Arnhem Land. And finally, the paper will challenge current gambling harm-minimization strategies in their appropriateness and relevance to Indigenous people living in remote communities.

Marisa Fogarty is a doctoral scholar at Charles Darwin University.