He thinks the image is just as sad as that of the heroin-addicted mother with her baby. Both vices are as equally devastating on family life. Freedman says the nation's gambling problems can be attributed to the proliferation of pokies, particularly their move into hotels. He said it happened when the poker machines moved out of the clubs and into the pubs. They are just everywhere - they are like a blight.
Freedman believes pokies and pubs are a more lethal mix.
Alcohol made gamblers more vulnerable. The move of poker machines into pubs was also limiting the number of venues available to musicians, with publicans closing live music areas and filling them with poker machines, said Freedman. I'm really glad that I'm not in a band starting off at the moment because the pubs where I started don't exist any more. I wouldn't have got out of the rehearsal rooms if poker machines had been around 10 years ago. Freedman said the problem had become so bad that where there had once been 20 live band venues in inner Sydney, there were now only two.