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Addicted to Risk: Ten Years After the ATM Glitch | Dan Saunders · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Approache Production.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I'm your host,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Adam Shand. If you like our content, please hit the
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  Speaker 2: like and subscribe buttons and share it with your friends
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  Speaker 2: to support more independent crime journalism. And if you have
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: a story for me, don't hesitate to get in touch.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: You can send me an email at Adam Shand writer
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. That's how today's story came to me,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: and it's one of the most unusual stories I ever covered.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: A decade later, I'm still coming to terms with how
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: and why it happened. I got an email from a
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: bank robber, not your average stick up man. Daniel Saunders
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: was a barmany in a country town who stumbled upon
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: a glitch in his ATM card which allowed him to
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: take almost unlimited money from the National Australia Bank.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Imagine getting rich in an instant.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: It is exactly what happened to Dan Saunders after an
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: EIGHTM glitch accidentally handed.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Him one point six million dollars.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: When confronted with this opportunity, many of us would take
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: a bit of cash, some might take a lot. Very
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: few would do what Dan did. Over the next four
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: and a half months, Dan transferred more than one point
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: four million dollars to his account and had the greatest
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: time of his life. A cast of friends, both old
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: and new, came along for the ride. As Dan sought
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: to define the limits of the glitch.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: He blew cash on wild parties like Jurius hotels fancy dinners.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: He even gave money to friends.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: The bank didn't seem to understand it was being robbed
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: and did nothing, so the spree grew bigger and bigger.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: In the end, Dan voluntarily stopped and came to me
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: to confess and help him atone for what he did.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: He expected police to catch him, but for three years
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: it never happened until it confessed to the crime on TV.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: The story of.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: The Golden ATM Card has gone around the world in
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: hundreds of different languages. I'm making a movie of the
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: story with a friend in Hollywood as we speak. But
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: it's only now that Dan understands what really motivated him.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: We originally sat down after ten years to discuss the
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: difference between the man and the myth. It's been ten
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: years since we sat pretty much in this room. If
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: you feed that way, I think I do better. Sound now,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't do it in the kitchen. It's better location
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: for Sounta. I've led that much at least. But you know,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: over that ten years, I've always felt the story didn't
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: satisfy me in some way. You came to me those
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: ten years ago and said, I want to confess this
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: thing I've done. It was a tremendous ride, but I
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: do feel that I want to atone for it, want
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: my life back, and so and so forth. And I
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: chose to see it through the prism that best made
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: sense for me, which was, here's this thing, this fate,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: this destiny, out of the ether. This ordinary bloke, good bloke,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: morally upright bloke chooses him. This is the moment where
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: the underdog wins. But even that, the underdog has a
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: moral sense and says, no, no, I did the wrong thing.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: And we put that story out and never really quelled
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: my doubts.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, no one challenged the facts. Nobody to this day.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: And always the first question was, Ah, this couldn't have
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: happened the way he said. It couldn't have happened, you know,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And what's happened to the rest of the money. And
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I got to answer the first question that I know
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent. Because I was skeptical at the beginning too,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: but over time you showed me and I checked to
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: my own checks and the fact that even when I
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: said to you, mate, bless you like and fuck off,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: you still wanted to come and tell me.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So I didn't understand any of that.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Why would someone be so keen to really damage their
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: own life when they didn't have to?
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And since then, this story has gone.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: All around the well millions and millions of downloads, and
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: it's always told through that prism that was convenient to me.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: It's remarkable.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: The numbers get bigger and the story gets larger and
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: bigger and bigger, and everyone wants to see it the
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: way they want to see it, and you, in that
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: process are no longer Dan Saunders. You're kind of what
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: they call an artifact of other people's images and desires.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: And I think what I want to do today, I
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: think you have the clarity now to really resolve this
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: story in a way that makes sense to me, at least,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: so to understand was.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: This really a surreal thing?
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Did the fates powers that we don't know about choose
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: you to give you this atm glitch and to have
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: this experience or was there something else that play. I
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: know you didn't think this at the time, but I
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: think over time you've got a lot of clarity to
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: your experience.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: What it costs you, what it was. How do you
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: see it now?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Was this like finding a needle in the haystack or
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: the haystack finding you?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot, There's a lot there at it.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: It's great to be back in the same place as
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: ten years ago, and speaking about it further, It's been
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: a hell of a journey.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: All of the time. I've got no regrets about it.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: The way that I told the story at the time,
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: I didn't feel that that was, you know, in any
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: way inaccurate. Probably in hindsight you sort of look back
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: and you go, well, oh, that's of course why I
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: did that. But I was Yeah, I mean I was
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: a recreational punter, you know, used to gamble on the
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: horses on the weekend, and yeah, kind of in a way,
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: I guess I was sort of looking for something like that.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: I think you probably naive if you think that I
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: was just walking along the street and just found something
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: sort of.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Out of the blue, or if the fates chose you
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: or something.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I was definitely I was
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: partial to it, and it almost became like, I mean
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: I never I never gambled, you know, more than I
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: sort of, you know, like I see that. You know,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: it's so interesting with the gambling messages, you know, like
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: gamble responsibly. It's like, well, what's responsibly? Like is it
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: just you know that you can get all your bills
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: paid and eat, or like what's the level of you know,
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: do you need to be putting some way of your
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: future or I guess it's you know, it's all sort of.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Up to you what's responsible.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: And I see that the gambling message, now you know,
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: chances are you're about to lose, and the government sort
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: of celebrates this message. You go, oh, the message is
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: so great, so different as a gambler or you know,
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: a punter, there's something in my TNA. I look at
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: that message and I go, well, yeah, chances are I
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: can lose, but chances are I can win.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: You know, like that actually entices me more when I
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: hear that.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: At the end, I'm like, oh great, yeah, yeah I
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: might lose, but hey, I might win, you know, And
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: that's what it's.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: All based on.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Because I think the way this story has been told,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: and I told it myself, is that again this shows
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: you in a surreal, mystic way. But you put it
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: very succinctly to me when we spoke again back in
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: the same place on the highway that I had my
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: first conversation with you.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: But I set that up.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I made sure it wasn't the same place to be
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: honest for the story, you know. But you said this
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: was looking for me. Maybe not. Maybe I was looking
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: for this or something similar, or it would have been
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: something similar like this, because the real addiction maybe not
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: gamblings there, but I think it's the addiction to.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Risk, yeah, and living life in a scarcity loop. There's
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: this guy named Michael Easter, and he has this book
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: called Scarcity Brain, but he talks about this thing called
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: scarcity loop, and it's in a lot of things. It's
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: in social media, it's in yeah, of course. But ultimately
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: this ATM thing was just a exacerbated way of the
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: way that I lived my life at that point, you know,
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: so unpredictable rewards, not knowing what's going to happen.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: You know, It's like funny.
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  Speaker 4: If you don't like gambling, you usually like certainty, you
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: know what I mean. So so gambling sort of doesn't
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: work on people who like certainty because you know they
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: can't sort of. But people who like surprises and you know,
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: joy that comes in a way that's a complete surprise
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  Speaker 4: was always amazing to so this ATM glitch I found
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: it and it was like, well, I can't stop because
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: I've got to see what's going to happen next, you know,
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  Speaker 4: and people just to this day, I mean, it's been
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: replayed and retold, and so that's the places where people
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: come into trouble where they don't understand it is. It's
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: been told by third parties over and over and over
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: again who don't actually understand exactly the way it happened.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, so this was an ATM glitch.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I could alter my account balance, an incredibly
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: addictive thing to be able to do. Like I said,
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  Speaker 4: literally by the stroke of a keyboard, you could put
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: one hundred thousand dollars in your account and then you
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: could walk into the bank and ask them for a balance,
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: and they think that you had that money there, so
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: they didn't see anything by giving you five thousand or
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: ten thousand. They're more than happy to give it to
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: you because that was in the bank to them. So
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: it's much more than just an ATM glitch. It's a
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: whole system glitch. But the point is it was incredibly addictive,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: but I would say more addictive than the gambling, and that's.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Why that's why I went through it. But if I
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: hadn't gone.
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: And told that story in court, I don't think it
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: would have gone very well for me. I think they
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: would have been like, well, you can go to jail
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: for ten years.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, I don't know that didn't happen,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: but I was amazed, literally amazed, when you manage just
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: to get one year, you know, I mean, I was
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: thinking this is going to be a five on the
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: bottom because other people have got similar sentences. So maybe
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: that formless, maybe that kind of naive decision. Maybe that
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: you know, that story, if you like, was the reason
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: that you stayed out of jail for those other years.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Because the addictive gambler who sees an opportunity and willfully
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: exploits it, is he going to get the same amount
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: of sympathy and stature as someone Yeah.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Probably not. Probably not.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: I mean I'm not sure, but I think it was
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: a very good move, so were playing dumb to it all? Absolutely, Like,
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: I think that was a winning move, but I wasn't
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: thinking about that at the time.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: But they can't stop there from it. You say it
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: wasn't a dumb move and it was a strategy. I
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: honestly don't think you were thinking that far ahead. I
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: think it's only now, And this is why this conversation
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: is so important at this stage. It's only now, with
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: that distance, you have the clarity on what was actually
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: going on and what you should do. And I think
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: you when I look back at our first meeting at
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: McBridge Road having a coffee first told me about it,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: and I think you're almost looking at me saying, help
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: me to understand this. Why is this happening to me?
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: How do I move beyond this? And I couldn't tell you.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was an incredible set of circumstances. You know,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: you go to the bank. Obviously they're saying to me
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: that they're going to come and get That's their message, right,
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: So I'm like, Okay, well they're going to come and
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: get me eventually.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: So what do I do now?
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: It's just sort of tread water and wait for them
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: to come, But I don't know that the guy I'm
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: talking to at the bank, he's ultimately not making the
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: decision on whether they're going to come and get me, right,
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: So I'm not hearing from them. I'm hearing from the
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: guy who's probably got a bit of heat on his
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: job because of what I was able to do.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but the point.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Is that they're not being transparent with me, Like, you know,
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: I'm coming forward, I'm owning up, I'm saying this is
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: what I'm doing, but they're not sort of coming back
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: to me with a transparent response. So that creates this
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: sort of thing. Well, you know, obviously they didn't bank
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: on me being a gambler because I just called their
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: bluff at the end of the day and I went, well,
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: if you're going to come and get me, then I'll
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: just sort of out myself and then we can get
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: this ball.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Rolling a lot quicker, which I was happy with.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: I was finely, but yeah, I mean to sort of
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: realize now that I wouldn't have had to face any
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: consequences for this, I'm sort of thinking how many people
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: have done similar things to this. I mean, there's got
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: to be more than just met it can't be just dance.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: There's got to be flaws in systems, in big banks
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: in Australia where this has happened before and they've just
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: turned the other cheap.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: In every man made system, there are these flaws. And
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the difference here is that very few people will step
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: across the threshold, and very few people, having stepped across
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: the threshold, will now have the moral conscience or whatever
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: the thoughts.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Whether you had to atone for it, how do you
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: feel about now?
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: As you say, you could have got off scot free,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: but you went through all these things as a result
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: of your own actions in putting yourself in it.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about that now?
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: I think now I'm one hundred percent where I need
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: to be. I just feel like it was meant to
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: play out in that way. I don't have any regrets
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: about it. I mean I regretted the first fifteen minutes
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: in jail. I was like, oh, what have you done
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: with your life?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And all that?
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: But you see the people in jail, Yeah, they've done
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: bad things, and like, obviously there's a point where they deserve.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: To be there.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: I'm not saying that. You know, if you don't do
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: the wrong thing. You shouldn't go to chart. I'm not
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: saying that, we're just saying they don't have the normal
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: upbringing that your eye had, you know, like they don't
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: have people that read them stories in the morning or
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: in the night, or they don't have people like literally,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: guy I shared a cell with literally his dad used
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: to beat him every day. Like if your dad beats
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: you every day, and that's your vision of the world.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: How are you going to turn out? You know what
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I mean? Like so, and the damage is done by
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the time he's seven.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: It's not like when the government takes over at fourteen
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: fifteen or whatever it's it's when he's seven. He's getting
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: belted and he's you know, he's lost hearing he's right
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: yet and like he took someone apart. He did, like
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: he did the wrong thing. He's the first to admit that.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: But he's like a bulldog, like you cross him, he'll
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: kill you.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: That's it. He doesn't give shit, you know what I mean.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: And it's a product of society, that's not a product
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: of like, oh, he was just a bad egg, you
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: know what I mean. So that time in there was
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: incredibly insightful.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I was fearful for you to be honest, because, like
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I said at first meeting, you're not a crook stepping
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: into a space.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, oh, what do you know.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I was worried about this idea that people were saying, oh, well,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Dan must have put money aside. I was thinking, when
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: he gets into jail and the people know this, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: they hear about his mother and his uncle and other
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: family members, and they go visit them to say, well,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: where Stan's money, you know, and are you responsible for that?
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: Oh you think that hens? Yeah, yeah, people have called
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: my mum and asked that. Absolutely. But I mean that's all,
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: you know, that's all part of it. I'm not winging.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: I'm just saying that, like you underestimate what happens in it,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: Like I think people sort of go, oh, yeah, you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: that's just that, and you have no idea like the
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: amount of what's happening between the guards and the prisoners.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And then how that impacts the outside world.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: The amount of cash going through TA aircounts for drugs
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: in jail is astronomical, unbelievable, likely to be the easiest
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: thing to track in the world if you're trying to
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: track it.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: But it's just now us. You know, oh, you know,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: that's how they do business, keep them quiet to some extent.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And there maybe I think you've had one of those
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: penny drop moments, or maybe it's come over a period
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: of time, and there's certainly a penny drop moment for
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: me where we.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Look at the motivation for this because I could never
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: understand it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I understand risk and having a dash and you know,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: going for the underdog, but destroying your own life in
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the process. I never got it, and I was never
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: comfortable in being a part of that, to be perfectly honest.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And now when you come to this point with the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: clarity to.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Say, I know what kind of caused this, and it's
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: not what the three hundred million downloads on YouTube purported
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: to be, it's no longer the truth. It's factually correct,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: but it's not the truth. What's the real source? Why
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: did you at that point when you could have stepped
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: back and said, you know, one night's jolly, go back
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: to life, wangoada fiance making your progress?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Why didn't you?
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: It was just the thriller of the chase. It was
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: the process, It was the uncertainty, it was.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: The choose your own adventure it was.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: It was basically I got a free hit at something
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: that people don't normally get.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: What though, But what was that thing?
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: I think it was just excitement. I think it was
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: just a level. There was a level of excitement there
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: that I really really resonated with. And my dopamine levels
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: must have been so high that I was just looking
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: for one through, after one through and after one through.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: The way you feel when you were gambling. Yeah, yeah,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: for sure. You know, I don't feel like I'm a
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: victim to gambling. I love gambling, you know.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: I don't look at gambling and go through all my
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: life like in a lot of ways, I'd say it's
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: enhanced my life. But is the fifteen year old who's
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: you know, in the TB.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Betting next to his science teacher? You know, is he
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: good with it? You know? I don't know. But the
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: forty three year old means I'm in it. Yeah.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not looking to tell a victim story here, because
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: if this is a victim story, the listeners will have
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: already switched off. They know this story, they know the story,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and they processed it. But I think the harder thing
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: is to look at the true motivation for this and
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: why it.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Couldn't stop, how it just changes everything.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: And I look at those stories after this conversation we had,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I look at those stories out on the internet and
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I just kind of laugh at them. It don't make
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: any sense, And you've made it make sense for me
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: in the sense that this wasn't looking for you. You
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: were looking for this, Yeah, for.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Sure, for sure.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: And I think automatically, like if you say, if you
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: say you're a gambler. I remember there was a there
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: was a forensic psychologist when it saw the County Quarter
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: pointed him.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: His name was Ian Joblin.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: I told him the whole story and he concluded that
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: gambling had nothing to do with it.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, you're a hell of a psychologist, buddy.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: Like if you can't work out that I went in
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: an ATM spree or a bank spree and the sole
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: purpose or the sole source wasn't because I was a
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: bit of a punter, then I don't know what you're
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: doing in.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: This little lofts in the County Court, buddy, because there's
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: something not quite right there.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: But I don't know whether he wanted to see it
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: or he didn't want to see it.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I don't know the politics behind that,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: but it's.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Very, very weird that gambling wouldn't have been you know,
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: the court sat there and went, oh, yeah, Dan was
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: just a barman who went to the ATM and saw
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: it was you know, sharn out cash.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: So you just kept getting it. That was fine for
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the court to follow.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: They were happy, so the bank didn't have to explain
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: anything on their part and that was it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Case closed.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think over this period of time, you've
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: had space to reflect on your own journey through this
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and why these things happen and also what the purpose
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: of it was. And you know, when you look at
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: those portrayals on the internet, but now it's just ubiquitous,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: hundreds of millions of downloads, and it's to me, it's
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: not the Dan Saunders that I'm coming to know now,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: it's the projection of what people wanted to see there.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: How do you feel when you look at the Dan
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Saunders that's portrayed in those stories.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, half of them aren't factually correct, so.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: A bit of an issue there. But I don't really
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: mind what people write.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's funny if I cared about what
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: people thought about me, there's no way I would have
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: ever done something like the ATM thing, Like I don't
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: I don't really really have this thing where I've got
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: to be like, oh, I wonder what they think about me,
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: or I want to be this, or I want to
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: be that. It doesn't really come to me in any way,
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: like yeah, sure, I don't go after people like you know,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: hurt people on a personal level.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: But if I can stick it to the man, then absolutely.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: I loved you for that. No one's taking it down.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: They all loved you for it. That's that's the common theme.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: And this is whatever, this is the secret dream, this is,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: this is the escape acts. This is what everyone wants.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about Allen Watts moving from one disliked self
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: image to something that you do want and who wouldn't
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: want to be the hero of the day, the Alaric.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And the guy who sticks it to the man.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: No one wants to be the gambling addict, the guy
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: who's victed to risk the real story. Can you see
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: how that character in those stories is not really your
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: story at all?
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: In that the facts of the same, Oh for sure.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: And I mean now that you tie in the gambler
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: you're almost sort of you're not really your person when
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: you're a gambler, you know, for a country that punts
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: so much and we've got so many gamblers, almost when
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: you're telling a story, it kind of gets distored to
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: the fact you're a gambler.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, oh, he's a gambler. Though he's a gambler,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, but I'm still a person.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: And in the world, we love winning gamblers. Losing gamblers
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: are losers. We don't ready hear from them. We don't,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: we don't, and they're unfortunately the kindling for this industry
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: in this country and around the world. But so while
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: you were a winner as such and you lived life
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: on your terms, I don't think any addicts would ever
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: say that they live their life on their own terms
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: when they're being directed by an addiction. And I feel
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: like that's the realization that you came to that at
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: that moment where you could transfer money from an account,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: you didn't have to think, you know, you were compelled.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And I know, like, look, I probably put
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: it to you that even down the track, when the
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: bank said we're going to come and get you, I
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: wanted to just say straight out that I expected them
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: to say, hey, Dan side in this NBA and don't
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: talk about it again. That's why I expected from the bank.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: I didn't expect them to press charges against me. I
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: wasn't disappointed that they did, but I just didn't expect it.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: I thought it would be too much of a storm.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: And I mean, it's going to be a movie now.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: The Bank's going to hear about this for the rest
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: of the earth.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: If it had a life, if it had a life.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: It had a life, yeah, if it had a heartbeat, no,
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: But the point is, I mean, if they hadn't told me,
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: you know, on certain terms, that hey, this is not
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: going to come back to.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: You, then I would have just walked away. But it
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: was the fact that I was getting.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: From the bank we're going to come and get you
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: spurred me to do this.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: But I did this because I like risk, right.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: I love risk like I love gambling, maybe a little
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: bit too much. I'm not a victim of it. I'm
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: almost like a perpetrator of the gambling.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Because typically victims of addiction speak in terms of
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: regret and sorrow for what they've done to their lives
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: other people, and they missed this part, which I think
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: is quite important to people's actual understanding.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: But how much fun the consumption.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Of the drugs or the gambling, or the risk, or
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: what sex or whatever it is, how much fun it was,
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: And if people were fair ink and we might be
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: able to see this thing a bit more clearly rather
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: than through the rose colored glasses as you're just a
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: loser in a week if you fall in that place.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: I remember when I went to the media and told
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: my story it was risky, and I liked that part.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that's risky, as I'm going to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: And even in the county court when she was like,
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: you know, saying oh this and that, and you know,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: we're not going to watch the video on YouTube, and
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: then she plays the exact video that's on YouTube.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: All of that.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: When I was sitting there, I was singing, well, if
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: I get five years here, I'll be lucky. And when
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: she gave me a year, I was like, Wow, you
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: hit the jackpot, you know, And it.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Was the same feeling as winning the jackpot. I was like, jeezus,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: a year. Good stuff.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's really interesting because now you can say you
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: took this risk saying I thought, I can get five
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: happy with one, get one. So the risk in a
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: sense sort of paid off, well the gamble.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know whether it paid off. I mean,
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: if I apply for a job, like the answer is no,
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: you know, I wouldn't say it paid off. Okay, but
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: but yeah, I mean it got the desired results I
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: want at the time, for sure.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: And I guess that's a feature of a risk addiction,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: is it's about what you need at that moment the
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: next five minutes.
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: That's what it is. And it's a quick outcome, you know,
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: relatively speaking. It's like, Okay, we're going to roll the
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: dice and then we're going to get an outcome perfect.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: Let's do it again, bo Let's do it again. And
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: only once you understand that scarcy loop, you can see
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: it in a lot of things. Right, So the scarcy
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: loop is everywhere. Now, I'll leave it to Michael East
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: to be able to explain exactly what it is in
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: his words, but I think he's nailed it because it's
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: in Facebook likes, it's in Instagram. If you put a post,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: you get you know, a little, you know, But they started.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Putting it everywhere. That's my addiction, he likes. Yeah.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: So they started putting it everywhere though, so it's in
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: kids learning apps. It's like the old soft drink, you know,
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: truck thinking. You know the sound, right, you know the sound,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: and then that sticks with you forever. Mister Whippi, you
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: know that, you know the you know the sound. All
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: these sounds, all these things, they seem like they're nothing,
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: but there's some very very smart people behind them, and
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: they understand exactly what they're doing.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: This recognition of an addiction to risk and gambling has
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: been a great clarifying moment for you, I think.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: And when I.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Look at the story again, the story is it's portrayed
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: and so and so forth, you know, and that people
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: almost represent you. It's confusing because on one level, it's
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: this naive every man bloke who stumbles on this thing,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: but by the end he's transformed to this sort of
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: criminal mastermind.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: He's going to do all these things.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And you wouldn't have done all these things and not
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: put some money away. And that's one of the tantalizing
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: questions for everybody who watches these videos. Dan must have
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: put some money aside. But I know addiction, whether it's
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: drugs or alcohol, gambling. At the end, there's never anything left, correct, Yeah, right, absolutely,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: there's nothing left.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: You take it to the you take it to the end. Look,
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you right, there's nothing left. And
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: you think people are going to believe that anyway?
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: They probably won't.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I could tell you I had, you know, five
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: million stash somewhere in a Cayman Island account and you
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: tell me I'm full of shit.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I'd prefer to believe that to be as a journal
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I'd prefer to believe that.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter, it's not it's not important. I've already
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: learned that if you give them the story, then you know,
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: if you give a court of law the story and
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: they don't really want to know the true story, they'll
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: just use that. So what's the point in saying, oh,
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: this is here, you're just going to get some pin
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: push or somewhere.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, they didn't want to know it, period, they really,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: they really didn't. But I think I'm talking about the
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: perception for people, you know, and this idea that you
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: see it kind of destroys the whole premise. If you
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: go through all the self destruction, family at risk, future destroyed,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: all these things.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: You're getting pushed and pulled in the.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Media, end up going to jail linkable biggest belief that
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't have something tucked away, But it's only a
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: thought when you don't understand the nature of addiction, particularly gambling.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Well, pretty this far.
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, I leave it a lot better house, and
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: I've got a lot more money in the bank.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Than I've ever had in my whole wife, So I
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: would say I'm doing better.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: None of it's the NABS, No, no.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: No, I wouldn't have a bank account with the NIBS
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: because you know, you'd probably just have money disappearing from it.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're in a good place now, to be honest.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean I'm not some sort of high flyer
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: with a private generally, but yeah, yeah, but I'm only
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: in a better place because i understand myself a lot
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: better and I've actually been able to stand back and
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: take a snapshot.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Of what was going on and to be able to,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: you know, to move on from that. Yeah.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to stop myself idealizing this ending, right,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to stop myself like I idealized this story
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: in the beginning.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I got a little post note that we'll say completion.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: You're one of the things I have to complete and
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: to understand it fully, and your life just doesn't start again.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Now you're struggling with the purpose of your life and
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: the events to date, and it make sense to those
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: and go forward. And I think this self discovery about
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: the role of addiction to both gambling and risk is
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: driving you towards a much more sturdy purpose than anything
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: else that's come along.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, for sure, I want to start a gambling
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: retreat because I feel like I really understand gambling. You know,
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: I was listening to Helping Easy talk about gambling in
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: he doesn't get what gambling is. He doesn't really understand,
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: he doesn't grasp exactly what it is. He sort of
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: stands there talking about two people running between rocks, and
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: you know that we've always had gambling and all.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: This kind of thing.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: I think it's never been tied to society in such
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: a way that it is now, you know, even the
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: you know, the things like I think he made some
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: examples like, oh, you know, two people want to have
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: a bet on a horse race, then that's their business.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: But we're sort of far beyond that, like it's in
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: trench now, and I don't think people actually understand how
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: far the tentacles go. You know, I read some stuff
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: from the Gratton Institute and sort of you know, people
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: who are doing research into this, but I don't think
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: they really realize how far it goes. Like I think
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: they just sort of, you know, they get that it
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: goes deep. But you know, the whole conversation around you know,
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: gambling ants at the moment. You know, yeah, sure I'm
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: not I'm not anti gambling at all, but I reckon
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: people should be allowed to do it, but the kids
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: probably shouldn't see it. A kid who's fourteen probably shouldn't know,
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: you know, exactly how to tie multi together or you
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: know whatever. Think already the culture in Australia is that
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: they want to go to the casino when they turn eighteen. Anyway,
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: they want to get a sports better camp. But you
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: go and ask it's not about going to the pub
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: for a piss up. It's like I can't wait till
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: aden and I'm gonna get sports better camp.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: You know, because I like Daisy Thomas or you know,
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: I like Billy brownas or whatever, you know what I mean.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: It's so entrenched, but it's also intrenched in ways that
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: you don't like. The gambling industry, they've been largely underestimated, right,
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: So Tom Waterhouse came into you know, people's laund rooms
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: on the footing right, talking about odds, talking about races
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: the next day. Case whole mo is to basically join
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: up gambling propositions. So they try and join racing to
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: football and vice versa. So there's a product for every
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: moment of the day. So that's how they want you
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: to bet. So it doesn't matter how much you're bet
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: at the start, just a dollar or five dollars or whatever,
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: but they ultimately want you to bet on the footy
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: on Friday night and then wake up and think about
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: what you're going to bet on Saturday, the racers, then
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: the footy on Saturday night.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Then that comes.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Into you know, if you get real interested, then two
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: am there's some badminton.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: They call it next to go a gambler.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: So basically it's all the way that they do it
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: is they join it together. They're actually over there in
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: America trying to join up racing and American sport right now,
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: Like that's their big thing, and it's it's super smart.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: It's like if you have the n of L season,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: right and people.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Bet on that, they've always bet on that, but then
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: you have the NBA season, there's nothing to link it, right,
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: So what they try and do is they try and
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: link everything together. So it's more like a slot machine,
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: you know, it's more this continuous thing that just keeps going.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: So that's their emma. Basically, they want to make non.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: Gamblers light gamblers, and then make light clamblers medium gamblers,
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: and then medium gamblers heavy gamblers.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: That's pretty much what they want to do.
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: Like if you ask anyone in advertising, that's pretty much
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: what the gambling industry want to do.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: That's fine, Like for people who are of age, you know, obviously,
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: you know you've lived your life long enough for you
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: should have someone around telling you, you know, maybe the
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: problems that can come up as a result of gambling
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: and all this. But the issue is that this stuff's everywhere.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: So the same sounds there is on a slot machine,
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: and that same scarcity loop is in the actual games
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: that are part of the school curriculum. People just sort
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: of look at it and go, it's just a funny game.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: It's got funny sounds. But the same game designers are
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: actually designing poker machines and slot games online. And also
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: they're doing kids learning apps, so they're putting in the
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: same sounds in the learning app as what are in
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: the poking and then the stories that are involved in
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: the learning apps then later on become poker machines. Whether
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: it's by design or not, I don't know, but the
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: point is it's just become so normal.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: You talk about fifteen being an important age, and I
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: always thought this was an important age for you, but
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: we never got to the bottom of it. Why really,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Because at fourteen and a half you lost your dad
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: very suddenly. And I think what you're talking about now
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: is an appeal to parents. Again, this is not about
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: saying my life would have been different had this not happened.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: But I think you've got some clarity about that event
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: and what you faced when you're making sense of these
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: things in the world. Your mum was still there battling
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: away trying to raise your dad was gone. You had
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: to make a lot of these decisions yourself. When you
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: talk about that. Yeah, I can talk about that.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: I used to love footy, right, and I used to
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: go to the footy all the time and always go
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: with dad and he take me to training and stuff
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: So I think that all just ended. So what was
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: he like? It's beautiful. Yeah, he's beautiful man.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: I loved him. Yeah, still thinking about him all the time.
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: But the point is, you know, people, people die and
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: things happen.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: What are your memories of it?
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: I just always just always full of joy, just always. Yeah,
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: you love to drink. I don't think you punted. I'm
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: not sure, but he just was left the party. Yeah,
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: just a really sort of outgoing guy who got on
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: with everyone and just had a great time.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, at that age, the father is very important. Fourteen.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: You're becoming a prototype young man at fourteen and.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: A half fifteen, and.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: So I guess that moral or practical guidance or whatever
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: you want to call it, when you remove that all
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: of a sudden. Yeah, and Mum's I mean, Mums, she's
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: a beautiful warman. She's did everything she possibly could for you.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: But these were things you're going to walk through pretty
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: much on your own. You know, what impact did that have?
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: From that age, do you think, Well, I think I
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: definitely found a crutch in like having a punt and
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: stuff like that, and it was so normal. I mean,
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: back then it was so normal. You know, you'd have
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: to sweep at school.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: You know, literally it's good for the Melbourne cupany, Yeah,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: it's the teacher to do it, you know.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: I remember in the North Melbourne tab when I was
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: fifteen in my school uniform, you know, the science teacher,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: mister Kuma. You know, they're punting as well, and you
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: know it was sort of like, you know, just a
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: little secret, you know. And that was a few of us,
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: it wasn't just me. Yeah, so just how yeah, just
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: how normal it is. But I mean, I think the
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: point with all this stuff is that you know, you
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: can get hung up on gambling.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: All of this can lead to a gaming addiction or
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: a risk addiction, I think, more more broadly, a risk cher. Yeah.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: You've got these fourteen year olds, you know who won't
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: leave their house because they're playing video games. Yeah, if
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: you had a caught it earlier and known what this is,
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: then you know the parents might not be having such
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: an issue now.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because when we started this new discussion you did
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: say a few times that I would like to classic structure.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: I'll have a conversation with my fifteen year old self.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: And what would that conversation be. I mean, particularly that
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: fifteen year old self has lost a very strong guiding
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: force in his life, his own father.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, the fifteen year old self.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: Look, so when you lose someone close to you, you
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: just want to live every day, you know, like at
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: you last and then growing up, I lost a couple
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: of really good mates early so to eighteen, and yeah,
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: that just reinforced that.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah I was.
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: I was just having fun, just basically working as much
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: as I needed to live and having fun the.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Rest of the time.
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: You know. But you go to bars and restaurants and
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: stuff in Melbourne here, and there's a lot of people
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: doing the same thing.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: It's not out of the ordinary.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Where it gets out of the ordinary, though, is when
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: you're confronted with an opportunity like the ATM and you
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: don't stop, you don't even hesitate really.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Well for sure.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: But I think there's a lot of people on the
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: cusp of that, you know, if they were given that opportunity.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Well, I actually know that this is true.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: I'm not just you know, I'm not just sit back going, Oh,
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: you know, everyone would do it if they had a chance.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: And I know everyone wouldn't do it, but a lot
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: of people would.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: I know because they messaged me and I read comments
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: online and they say I would have done it, but
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: I would have done it better, and this is how
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: I would have done it.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: So you can't really tell unless you're in the position
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: what you'd actually do in that circumstance.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: But well, yeah, I don't think that you don't, but
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: you don't actually know.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I thought that was the pivotal question out of the
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: whole thing, Like, you know, when faced with the same situation,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: do we all have this seed of larceny in us?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: And we go and do it? You know?
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: And out of a time, I realized that very few
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: people would do it. A lot of people will talk
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: about it, particularly what they would do with the money
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: when it came to that stepping over the threshold and
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: in a sense becoming somebody else not so sure, Yeah
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: you stepped over it.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Why are you different? I don't know. I think it's
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: just a certain point.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: I think a lot more people, especially the victim matters,
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: matters who it is so I think there's enough people
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: to hate banks who would actually do it and sort
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: of you know, like the equation online is in one
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: point six million for a year.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: You know, you did well.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: But of course I wasn't thinking about the equation at
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: the time, but ultimately I was.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I think I told you why I stopped before.
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, ultimately I thought I was just adding to
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: my prison sentence every single transaction I made, So you know,
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: that's the reason I stopped. So I thought, well, he's
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: still quite young. You don't want to go to jail
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: for too long, so you know. But it wasn't because
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: you know, I felt remorse for the bank or anything
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: like that. Like in a lot of ways, I wish
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: I was a you know, souless entity so I could
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: just keep.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Going forever because you would do it again. Well, I
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: feel I deserve it, you know.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: I reckon that society hates banks that much that if
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: an alternative comes along, it's feasible and people can do
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: it by.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Themselves, they will take it. But they don't go down, No,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: they don't. There's that bank robbers, right.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: You know a lot of people would fantasize about running
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: into a bank with a gun. Maybe they don't, but
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: some people do, but they never do it. People want
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: these highly charged moments where they're in control of their destiny,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: where they do whatever, where they would like to have
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: all time and escape my hand, the life that I
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: kin'd of hate and these things I hate about myself,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: you know, But they don't do it. And one thing
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: I never understood, and it bothered me a bit, to
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: be perfectly honest, your friends came along for this, all
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: this partying, all this stuff, gambling, the rest of it.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: You were the one going to jail, and they.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Were happily singing at the table one day, Dan's going
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: to jail, but not tonight or whatever the song was.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking, didn't they realize what was happening?
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Didn't they realize that they were cheering you towards your demise.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: The best thing that anyone ever told me was some
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: Spanish backpacker. He used to call me Jesus, and I'd
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: be like, what are you talking about? It? Like you
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: an idiot? What are you saying? Like I'm Jesus And
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: he goes, no, you're Jesus, And I'm like, mate, I'm
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: not Jesus. I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: Just stop calling me Jesus. And he was, you know,
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: he was drunk and high and whatever. So he just
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: kept coming back at me all night. You know, hey,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: there's Jesus. You're Jesus. You're nailing yourself to the cross,
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: so we can all party. That's what he said. And
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, well, I still don't think I'm Jesus,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: but I can see you're analogy. Now, I can see
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: what you what you mean by that. But the point
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: was I'm not a victim in any of these. You
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: know when people do something and then they look back
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: on it and they go, oh, I wish I didn't
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: do that. I was just you know, they made me
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: do it, or this made me do it. It's so weird.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I can't. I can't operate like that. It's not it's
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: not okay for me. I'm like, I'm all.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: About self responsibility. You go to take responsibility for your
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: own actions.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: That's it. I can't understand how people just sit.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: Back and go, oh, yeah, it was just that, and
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: you know they got me in you know, that was it. Yeah, okay,
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: there is a point where they try and get you.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: But also, you have a bit of self responsibility in
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: that way. You got to go, you know, draw on
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: in the sand, move forward from it. Go No, No,
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: I was in that too. That was my responsibility. I've
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: got to move on. I've got to mend the bridge.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: I've got to go forward and not look back and
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: not lament and not worry. It's fine. I'll just learn
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: from it and I'll move forward. That's it, you know.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: I'm all about that. I'm not about going.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: Oh you know, you know my dad died, and you know,
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: then this happened, and then this happened.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: What a story? What a sob store. Well, I'm not
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: calling it a sob story.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying that these are the milestones along the
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: journey which you can't change, and they did have an impact.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: But I also see your father's influence as well in
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: the sense of atonement and taking responsibility, and I was
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: really that did kick in. I don't want to think
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: it's just because if you're in jail you could gamble.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: Oh that's that was one of the one of the
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: good things about being in jail that you couldn't gamble.
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: But you know that's not true either, because you know
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: they've got racing dot Com on you know, twenty four
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: to seven there, and you know you can always get
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: a bet on this summer, so it's not really true.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: I'm betting with cigarettes and so forth at everything, but
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: who's going to get released next?
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Or anything? You can bet with real money, it doesn't matter.
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: They've got people, you know, they've got partners who are
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: putting on the bets, you know, and hey, I'm not
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: against that.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: So we you're gambling in jail.
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: No, no, I didn't gamble in jail, but only because
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to get into the politics with people
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: who are going to rip my head off, you know
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: what I mean. Smart, Like you know, I've worked in
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: nightclubs and stuff, and like you you know, as soon
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: as you walk in, you know who the people are
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: who are going to cause trouble in there. And if
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: anyone came to me and was like, oh, you want
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: to do this tear, I was like, oh no, I.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Don't have any money. That's it. I can't you know,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I can't pay, so I don't want it, thanks very much.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: But the point is if you get in with it,
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: playing a game with your life. These people don't stuff
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: around like This isn't like the taxi line on you know,
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: outside crown on It Sunday morning, where people have a
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: bit of a push and shove.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: This is like straight into it.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: I'm not ready to get my head caved in, you
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: know for some bullshit you know, bendigo raise five or
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: you know, and my partner or you know, someone I've
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: got on the outside, you know, misses the bus and
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: doesn't make it to the fucking tab to put the
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: money in the tab account.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Now, no, I'm not. I'm into risk, but not like that,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: not dumb risk.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, maybe that's so, But it did. It did
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: prevent you from gambling in there, and it gave you
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: some perspective on your gambling. And I guess you know,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: most people coming out of jail come out with a plan.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: They've had a moment of sobriety if it's been drugs
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: or alcohol, and they've got themselves together, taken up programs,
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: and they've got some lucidity about their life and they're
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: going to have a plan. And you came out and
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't long before the temptation was there.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: What actually happened?
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well I had to put I had to put
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: a lot of work into it. It's not like it's
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: not like it just changed overnight and then that's it, Like,
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: you know, I just learned about what my behavioral pattern was.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: But also some of your old friends contacted you. Yeah, yeah,
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of my old friends did.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: The friends.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: I will say about the friends the friends at the time.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: Can you imagine how crazy it was? So you so
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: you've got a group of friends and you discover that
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: you can transfer millions of dollars in your bank account,
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: you know, and people say, oh, you know, you can
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: only transfer six figures.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: How does that make a minion?
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: Well, if you put in nine hundred thousand, and then
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: you put in another nine hundred, that's one point eight,
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: and then if you do it again, that's two point seven,
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: and then if you do it then that's three point six,
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: and that's how it turns into millions.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Right, So you can transfer.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: Money up to nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, but
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: you can do it more than once. So I think
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: that's a misconception that sometimes people. So that's basically what happened. Right,
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: So then you show you friends that what do you do?
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, there was a strategy there, like it wasn't
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: It wasn't brains trust Google, think tank type stuff. But
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: there was a strategy, right. So I said to everyone
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: that we are just going to have the time of
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: our lives. And I will never say that any of
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: you were involved, because to me, what's the point of
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: dragging someone else down with you. I mean, it was
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: my card, my name, that was just me. Now it
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: happened someone else in my group of friends, and they
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: said that, then I'd go along for the ride because
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: I know that they know what they're dealing with. They
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: got their head around. But didn't anyone say damn mate,
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah they did. They did, and they said I can't
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: come with you, Dan, because I think you're going to
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: get in real trouble for this. You know, I love you,
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: but I'm not in it amount, you know. Yeah, people
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: did absolutely, And yeah, I mean I respected that at
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: the time one hundred percent. Like I didn't go, oh,
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: you know you or whatever, you know, like I said, yeah,
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: no worries, like I understand it's not.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: For everyone, but yeah, the most remarkable one. Man.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Let's not single people that I don't want to but
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: I mean I think, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean,
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: in particular was your close, close friend. He really encouraged
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: you to take it to the instagree, and then he
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: ends up a prison guard.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, but I mean, look at the end of
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: the day, I mean he might change the names. He
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: might have a real career there now. So at the
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: end of the day, I mean, I'm not into that either.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: I'm not into like putting someone in, you know, the
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: situation and now they're you know, a manager a prison
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Like, I'm not.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: No, it's not about that. But all I'm saying is
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: that you prepared to go along to this place where
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: you know, you kind of knew your mates wouldn't be
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: and you expressly didn't want them to stand with you.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, I think as a friend, i'd be
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: saying and I'd be one of those I'd say, Dan,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I can't come with you.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: It's like when you came to me and said, can
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: you help me atone for this? And I didn't want
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: to Initially, like all my friends had some information about this,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: and they all said, listen, the bank's giving it up,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: they're moving on, you know, And I didn't want to
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: be that person. I didn't want to be that person,
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: and alt I didn't, but I just wonder, you know,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: how you feel about those relationships now.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Do you still talk to people from that era? Yeah,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: I mean it's whoever I don't speak to.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: It's not my decision that we don't speak anymore.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: Basically, they a lot of people would be scared because,
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: like I mean, there was a guy in our friends group.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: He works at the court.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: You know, Like it's not like they would turn around
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: and be like, oh, that's okay, Like he'd lose his job.
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: You know, guy's a chiropractor. Like he doesn't want that
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: in the news or anywhere. Like I understand that, Like
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: there's this whole work cancel culture. Now, you know, you
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: instantly if you're you know, if you're involved in something
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: you know it's unsavory. Oh that's it for you. You're
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: sort of done. So you understand how people are. I mean,
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: I get that.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like that that you're sort of done
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: that you can't a lot of things that are closed
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: to you?
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: Now, Oh yeah, there's a lot of things are closed,
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: but there's a whole lot that's open though, you know
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: what I mean.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, I mean, you've got to just take
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the good with the bad. Yeah. Sure. If I send a.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: Resume to know the hotel, they're going to be like,
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: piss off, we don't want you working here. If I
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: sent one to the tab and said, hey, can I
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: be a tab operator? Pretty sure i'd know the answer.
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: If I wanted to work for the government, I doubt
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: I could. If I wanted to be a police officer, I.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Doubt I could. So there's a lot of things that
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: are sort of off the.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: Table, but there are a lot of things that are
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: on the table as well.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: So I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It's
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: it's just the nature of it what it is.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: I think the outcome is still in play in my opinion.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: It's what you do with that experience and information and
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: insight that makes a difference now, because you could have
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: just gone on telling the same true story that didn't
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: ever reveal your true motivation and the issue that began this.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: You could have kept doing that, but you've had the
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: courage not to do that.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: And I hope and sincerely pray that you turn this
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: into something positive, And I think it's around government advocacy
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: because you do bring a.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: New approach to it.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: And I like the fact that you're honest about what
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: gambling really is. I just don't buy the normal hand
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: ringing of the established anti gambling experts that gambling is
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: crack cocaine. You have one punt and your dead sort
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: of thing, and it's a pernicious thing. You'll lose all
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: possible motivation and ability to resist it.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: That's just garbage. It's not working. No, it's not working.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: And I think you said it's really what you do
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: with it, because that is very that's very Australian.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: You know, that's the castle, but it's what you've done
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: with it. And that's exactly you know, you go.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: Back to Dale, Carrigan, you know, you know who's three
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: high View, Crescent Cooler. I think it is. It's very Australians.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: They're not just rissyles. It's what you do with it.
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: Like I mean, I could turn around and go, oh
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: I can't get a job now, you know, it's all shit,
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, my life's over.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I know, you just move on. The fact is I.
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: Know a lot about gambling because I've spent the last
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: thirty years around it, so I know what it is.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: And there's a lot of people talking about it who
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: don't actually know what it is, you know, so the
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: Prime Minister's won, but also other people, so other people
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: in research, they don't actually know what it's like to gamble.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: And you know, like all respect to the people who
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: you know talking about it now, like Tim Costal, he's
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: worked in the anti gam the industry for ages, but
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: it is saying the same lines. It's like breakfast TV,
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: the same lines over and over again, and.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: People just switched off.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Well because listen, it's like the Nancy Reagan's just say
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: no to drugs, right, Okay, that's so simplistic and ridiculous.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: The fact is people do enjoy to change this state
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: of consciousness. They do enjoy to gamble, They do enjoy
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: these things. It's about doing it in a mindful way
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: where we're aware of the drivers and how enmeshed we
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: are in a system. But it's pretty much said the
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: governments in agreement with the gambling industry, this shall happen.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: So we won't see national bands, we won't see more funding,
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: we won't see scrutiny on is.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: This appropriate for kids? Kind of issues like you're.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: Raising well, the big thing that everyone says, you know,
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: if you read the card and you read all these papers.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: They say that Australia and the government have a gambly addiction, right,
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: that's what they say, But they don't actually understand what
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: that means, you know, So listening to the prom is
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: to talk about it, talks about you know, like there
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: was a letter sort of read to him and you
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: know he was like, oh, we feel very sorry for
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: you know, that father and that mother and all that,
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: and you know, but as you can see, gambling's been
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: around for a very very long time, and you know,
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: it's obviously an age old issue that we've got to
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: deal with here in Australia. But the point is that
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: it wasn't always tied to the freedom we are TV market.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: It's progressed since then. But when you've got a gambling problem,
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: you don't actually think it's a problem until it's probably
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: too late.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: So the government now is still in the point where
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: it's all still a bit sexy because it's like, oh, well,
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: it gives us cash and it's a great revenue raiser
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: and yeah, we've got to keep a few people happy,
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: but ultimately, you know, it's just about the victims. So
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: we've got to help the victims, but they don't realize
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: that it actually erodes society.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: What would you say, I mean, obviously, people like I
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: said before, I've looked at this story.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: It's gone around the world. It's a huge it's an
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: urban legend.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Now, how do you feel about particularly with the understanding
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: you have now you've got this clarity about it, and
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: you look at the way that story is presented, do
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: you think it's If you had a chance to tell
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: it again, would you tell it this way or would
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: you tell it the way it's been told?
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I think that hindsight, it's a beautiful thing.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: And he always understands things more from perspective, and you
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: give think space and you come to terms with them.
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: Because I don't dwell on the past. I'm actually fine
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: with the way that everything's played out. I don't get
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: up in the morning and go, oh, wish I didn't
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: do this or wish I didn't do that. Okay, I
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: mean I wouldn't have met the people I know now
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: if I didn't do that thing. I wouldn't know who
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: my true friends are now without doing that thing, and
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: I don't have this desire to be It surprised me
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: how far this story's gone, and I don't have this
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: desire to be known worldwide. I don't want to walk
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: into somewhere and everyone know who I am. In fact,
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: i'd actually like it if that wasn't the case, because
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: I'm not you know, I'm not interested in living that.
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: You know, back when I was twenty nine, one hundred percent, I.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Was ready for the movie. I was ready for everything.
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: You know, I was going to get some crazy you know,
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: boy band sort of numbers.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: You know, I was going to go real well.
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: But now I'm not done, Like my hair is thinning,
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: but it's all over. You know, for me, it's not
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: about that. Life's not about that stuff anymore. So it's
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: almost like it's a little bit of an inconvenience if
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: it does blow up, because then.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: I'll have you know, I have people where I live.
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: At home, going oh, I don't want you to go
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: there and do that. You know that doesn't seem like,
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: you know, that's very productive for our life. But in
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: saying that, I'm not complaining about it, it's just no,
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: you've never complained it.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: You've never complained and as I say, I mean, you've
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: taken control of your story because you know, when I
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: look back, and I realized that as much as I
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: was trying to tell your story, you were always telling it,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: and you did not understand or fully grasp the significance
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: of it. And it's taken this time of reflection to
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: get where you are now. That to me is a
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: wonderful thing, you know, And I think if it's to
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: understand how that can help somebody else, not be a victim,
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: but at least make your experience help somebody else have
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: some clarity that it's a pretty good outcome.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: And I think, I look at you now, you look
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: so much better than when I first even met you.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, you were not in a good place,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: my friend. And you came to me and you said,
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: the reason why I'm doing this is I want to
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: get my life back under my control. Here we are
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: ten years down the track. What does life look like?
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Are you still gambling?
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Is it in control?
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: Role?
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Where are we after that ten year period? Yeah?
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: Well, I just understand. I think anyone who has an addiction,
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: you either don't get the chance to sit back and
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: look at it from afar like you're always in it,
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: and then if you don't do that, you end up
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: killing yourself, or you end up doing something stupid, or
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: you end up in jail, whatever it is. You know,
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: people have got a gambi addiction. You're either bankrupt, in jail,
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: or dead or all three. So on two out of
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: three right, not bad odds right, yeah, not bad, but
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: I'm glad. But the point is that it's a negative
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: ending usually Now, unless you have the fortitude or the
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: internal ability to be able to absorb all that and
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: then come out the other end, then you're done.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: That's it for you.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: Now through like work with people who've gambled, and you know,
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: going and going and helping. And we did a documentary
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: about a gentleman that passed away because of gambling, and like,
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: it's just speaking to people who have an issue with
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: it or have had an issue with it. It is
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: quite an insidious thing, right, And I think society's view
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: of gambling, if you're not a gambler, you don't understand
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: about gambling.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Your view of it.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: Is like the Simpsons, Right, So Marge gets a gambling problem.
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: Homer says, I think you've got a problem money, and
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: she goes, what are you talking about? I don't have
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: any issues, no problem. Now he's spending a lot of
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: time with the casino. I think you've got a problem,
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: and she goes, no, no, I'm fine, and then she
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: brings back sixty dollars and home.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: He goes, I am got a problem.
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: You're fine, right, Since she goes back there and eventually
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: obviously she loses at all, and then she says, you
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: know what, Homer, I think I do have a problem.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: I think I need some serious help.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: And Homer says, no, no, no, diorry about that costs money.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: Just don't do it anymore, right, And that's pretty much
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: how society sort of looks at it, and then it
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: gets sort of distorted.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Well, ultimately, you've got to be true to oneself. And
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: here's the test. A person comes to you and says, Dan,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: I've gone to the ATM and the same things available
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: I like a punt, I like a bit of risk.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: What do I do? The YouTube you.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Would say, go for it one day, only chance, knock
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: yourself out, But the real you doesn't say that.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what does he say?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: Now? Well, with the whole gambling thing, and this goes
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: for anyone who's addicted to food or whatever it is,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: all you're going to do is.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Remove the desire.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: As soon as you feel like you're going without, you're
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: in big trouble, big trouble. If you abstain from something,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: then you're gone like that. That is not the way
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: to deal with it. The way is to tackle the desire.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: So the way I basically didn't gamble anymore is that
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: I went to the start of my life when I
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: wasn't a gambler, you know, because I don't think I'm
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: a gambler. That's not how I say, you know, I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: say I'm Dan, you know, like, yeah, I like to
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: gamble sometimes.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't we all, you know what I mean? Like,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: it's not I.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: Don't identify myself as that society, would you know, like
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: after you know the pod, you listen.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: To the podcast.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: Yet I was a gambler, you know, Like, But the
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: point is there was a time when I didn't gamble.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: So I just went back there and I went to
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: you know, the the guy who used to build mini
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: golf courses in the backyard, you know what I mean,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: And I differentiated the difference between false pleasure and genuine pleasure, right,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: so that used to give me absolute genuine pleasure to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: build those minigolf courses.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Loved it.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: Had the cans of Campbell soup, you know, hollowed out,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: and used to use them as windmills.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I tried. I tried, wasn't you know.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: But I had these big sort of iron things where
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: I can pack the soil and you know, make it like,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: you know, like it was a real mini golf course.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: He used to love it, used to do it for hours.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: But the point is that was my last link to
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: genuine pleasure, Okay, used to I didn't get anything out
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: of it other than an accomplishment of doing something. So
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: all this other stuff is all fabricated pleasure. It's all
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: stuff the mister whippie like, you know, the the overeating, like,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: it's all examples of just false pleasure. But what happens
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: is when they mix the genuine pleasure with the false pleasure. Right.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: So you know, for.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: Example, I would say sports a bit bet with mates, right,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: So you love your mates, right, You want to be
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: a part of life with your mates. You don't want
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: to miss out on your stuff with your mates. So
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: it's perfect, right because it's mixing genuine pleasure with the
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: false high that the gambling gives you, right, or you know,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: like it's been having for years with food, right, But
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: once you understand that and have a relationship with that
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: and go, is this a real pleasure or is it
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: just like do I know this person just because we
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: go to the races together?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Or is there more to it?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: If I removed the pineapple donut? What I still sit
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: there with this dude?
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? If you really question it
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: and go, why the hell am I doing this? Right?
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: But if you really.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: Tap into that, you've got to be in the position
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: where you can ask yourself the question. Though, like if
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: you're high and in the loop, there's no chance you're
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: going to be able to ask this question. You know,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: you need to be able to stop the said behavior
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: for however long. And this is yeah, this doesn't necessarily
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: just mean gambling. This is like you know, getting fat,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: or this.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Is really insightfuled and it's really insightl It's the insight that.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Only comes with age. Welcome to your middle age. It's fantastic.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: But I think the key question I've dealt with this
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: with other people who have dealt with addictions, and it's
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: about replacing that joy and how do you find.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Something that's going to meet that same high and the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: heights of the joy.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like imagine, like imagine like when you are when
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: you know, like the YouTube's present and I present it
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: as well, here's this infinite money. If money will solve problems,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: then this infinite money, who knows what can happen?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: That joy must have been extraordinary.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: And what it is is basically everything that makes you
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: feel bad afterwards is not a genuine pleasure. It's a
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: false pleasure, right because genuine pleasure you can only feel good.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: You can only look back on it and go, that
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: was the best. That's why it works so well because
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: there might have been times when the genuine gets mixed
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: with the false, like you might have been with your
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: best mate who you loved and you were doing lines
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: of cocaine and that might have been the best ninety life. Right.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: But the point is it works so well because it's
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: mixed together. Right, So if you can't differentiate, but the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: difference between that, you know, if you can't just go,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: I loved my mate, he was the best.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: Because x y Z's head.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: If it always involves cocaine, then ultimately it wasn't true.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: And you'll know that once you get further along, you'll
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: know that because you'll be able to look back on
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: it and go, Okay, yeah, I didn't really love him
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: that much.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: I just loved what we did together.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Because I mean, this could be the moment where
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: you acknowledge someone who's been quite influential on You're not
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: me because it's taken up a long time for you
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: to get to this understanding, and I think you've had
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: some really high quality discussions with someone close in your
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: life that's helped you get to this point.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about that? No?
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: Really, no, I didn't think so, but yeah, I mean,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: it all takes it, all takes work. I'll say that,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean. It's like I'm always wary
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: of like I will talk about me one hundred percent
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: all the time, but it's when it's like when bringing
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: other peace, I'm very respectful of that.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Like I won't just bring someone in.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: If they don't want to be in, then I don't
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: bring them in, you know, of course, yeah, of course,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: Like I've come to these realizations based on you know,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: my experiences after you jail and the glitch and all that.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: But the point is that if I can get there.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: Anyone can get there. Like if you're going through an
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: addiction right now and think you can't get there, like
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: you literally can't.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Anyone can't.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: It's just whether you choose to stick out, not the addiction,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: the getting over it.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: So you're not gambling, no, not drinking. No, I don't drink.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: I don't drink.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: I don't gamble like not so the excesses that are
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: used to you know what I mean I mentioned to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: you before.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: There's this whole thing.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: About, oh, you can't do anything again for the rest
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: of your life. That is prison. It's prison. You're putting
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: yourself in prison. What I do is I removed desire.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: I no longer have desire. I can go and sit
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: in a tab with my friends all day and not bet.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: That is like unheard of. They look at me and
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: they go, who are you?
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: But is that like sitting next to the smoker and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: inhaling their nine watching all the sounds.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: But I mean, if you're not having the bets, if
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: it's not impacting your pocket, then it's not the same thing.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: I know because I can I can tell you the
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: exact part of my brain that ignites when it's happening,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: so I know exactly.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: What it is.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: But the point is you don't live your life in
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: a bubble. That's not a solution. It's not a solution. Yeah,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: you identify the people who are going to take you
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: off course and don't have your best interests at hart.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: There's plenty of those.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: There's plenty of those who literally won't sit there with
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: you and if you don't have a line, then you're
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: dead to them. There's plenty of those people. But what
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: it is is differentiating those people. Because there's good in
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: all your connections and all your friendships. But the point
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: is that you don't need that stuff as a principle.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying ban enerthy.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: I'm saying, just understand why you do it, and then
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: that will help you to know, you know, don't just
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: think that you're a week loser just because you're doing
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: something like it's psychology with this stuff. It goes back
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: to like caveman stuff, like we love to press buttons
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: and like you know, do things for ourselves. We love
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: to do that, and that's what all this stuff is.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: It's all based on that there's people smarter than us
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: that are planning all this stuff. And they're making money
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: off it, right, But you know they call gambling entertainment rights.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: This is the biggest, like amazing thing in the world.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: They call it entertainment. Sixty percent of the cash comes
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: from people spending too much, you know what I mean, Like,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: that's how much comes from it. It's not people betting
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: ten bucks on a Friday night. It's people getting over
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: the top and involve and at the end of the day,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: they don't really want to talk about it because it's embarrassing,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: don't They don't.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: That's not embarrassing. That's what we want to talk about.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: But the point is, right, they call it entertainment. If
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: you go and film fifty people at the Penrith Panthers
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: or playing the Pokey's right, you will see a bunch
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: of unkept, tired, anxiety ridden people who are.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: Not having a good time. They might tell you they are.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: But if you look in their eyes, they're not okay, right,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: And I'll tell you why because you can go and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: film them, and then I can go to the footy
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: on the weekend, I could go anywhere people go to
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: have a good time, and you're going to be able
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: to tell me without knowing anything about them. You're going
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: to be able to tell me which ones the gamblers are.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: And that's the real message. Huh.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: I've been looking in.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: Your eyes for ten years, Dan, and I see something different.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: I see a sparkle, I see something different. Do we
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: eventually leave atm Boy and that Dan Saunders behind. Do
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: we eventually recognize that the story was slightly different, at
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: least in the motivation of it. And do we try
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: to let people know who look at that story to
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: say it's not the way, or don't make the same
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: mistake I made, or be aware?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: What is your.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: Message to someone who looks at the story which is
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: now a global thing. You're no longer at it. I
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: don't own it anymore. It's now a thing of the world.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's part of the solution. I think
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: it's reinforcing the problem. As if gambling is a way
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: to a miraculous future, something's going to change your life fundamentally.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: You're not going to be mediocre anymore. You're going to
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: be a winner and your experience I mean when it
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: becomes a loser eventually in gambling, well.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: I mean that you know they say the house always wins,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: and I think that that's the way the government, you know,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: the House, the House in Canberra feels about it as well.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: But you got to understand that.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: You know, like, yeah, the house can always win, but
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: occasionally a shark comes along and cleans you up. You know,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: like you talk about carry back up. You know, he
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: bankrupted a few casinos back in the day. It is doable.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: It's not like, you know, it's always you know, it's
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: always going to be the way. You know, I believe
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: their business model, you know, is ultimately flawed, you know,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: because they don't pay the winners. You know, people who
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: win consistently, they cut them off. But you don't reckon
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: someone's going to come up with some idea and go, okay,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: well I'm going to find all these people they cut
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: off and we're going to turn all the losing accounts
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: into the winning accounts. You don't reckon someone's going to
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: do that on a global scale. Now they might try
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: and stop them, but ultimately, you know, with things like
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: the blockchain and all sorts of things, you're not going
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: to be able to know what's coming. They're not going
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: to know what hit. This is dangerous talk, Dan. We've
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: just got you through because this is.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: But you're right, and I think the point is the
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: addiction to risk, the addiction to game, the addiction to
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: whatever it is, doesn't go away. You understand your name it,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: you live with it, and what does life look like
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: from here on for you?
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: Look, I think you know like you ask me what
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: people get from the story or what I want people
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: to understand from the story. The beauty about stories is
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: I can have an intention about a story, or I
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: can tell you what I think it is, but ultimately
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: it's up to you what you make of it. Ask Jesus.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: There's plenty of interpretations of that story, right. The point
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: is that I tell my story like transparently. I don't
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: have any attachment as to what you or anyone else
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: gets from it.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: I'm just telling it. I'm a man in the world and.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: I've been through his easy experiences and it's maybe who
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: I am today. And you might think I'm an idiot,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: and that's fine. That's for you to feel like. It's
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: not a problem to me. It doesn't affect my moving
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: forward in the world. I don't have an attachment to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: how you feel about me. But the point is that
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: there might be something in my story that you can
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: relate to your own life. You might be doing a
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: job that you don't believe in, there is another way
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: you can stop doing it. And if you're ultimately not
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: scared about not having any money for a while or
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: being seen as a loser for.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: A while, you can change that.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: That's the biggest thing that I hope that people get
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: from the story is that if you don't like the
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: course of your life, you can go, well, I don't
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: actually like this, I don't want to be a part
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: of it anymore.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to draw a line in the sand, and
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that anymore.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: I think it's a perfect place to stop, you know,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: to be honest, and I want to thank you for
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: your friendship over this decade and trust in telling this story,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: because if I hadn't had this conversation, the earlier stories
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: would have bugged me to my grave because I never
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: understood them.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: I never understood why such a nice guy as you.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: I've seen so many crooks go to this path, but
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: their crooks and their career criminals who that's what their
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: choice is.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: But you never chose that.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: And I'm so glad that you got through at this
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: stage with the insight, just to settle it. I think
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: that's a completion of this story and I'm really glad
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: for that.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Ah Nora as well.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: And look, Adam, I really feel that there was really
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: no one There was really no one else to tell
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: this story. I mean, yeah, you were reluctant at the
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: start to tell because you were so worried about what
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: was going to happen to me. But I think at
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: a certain point you understood that I wanted to tell
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: the story and that was my right.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: I was able to tell the.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: Story, and you know, I don't feel like anyone else
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: would have been able to bring it to light the
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: way that you did.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the story.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: At the same time, I was overwhelmed by my own
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: perception of it, which was.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: The golden ticket. Yeah, magical thing. Why this, you know?
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: And I think that's I think what we've got to
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: now is a very human explanation for it, which is
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: useful for other people who are examining their own motivations
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: for going into all kinds of situations.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: I think it's a life lesson.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: Nothing we say on this podcasts going to affect the
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: perception of the Dan Saunder as they know.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: I don't care.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: It's about what the twenty four hours a day you
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: live in and what you do from here.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be watching very closely.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: I don't think you'll be looking outside the bulls Head
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: tavern that wangerd with a hot ATM card.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: No, I mean that's right.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 4: I mean it's you live and learn and you just
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: go through these experiences and ye, there's not a point
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: where I go I wish I didn't do that, because
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: it's made me who I am today, and who knows,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: maybe I'm going to be able to help you know,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 4: people who you know, they might be eighteen, they might
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: be sort of you know, getting right into trouble. Like
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: if I was eighteen and I had someone with the
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: amount of experience I have in gambling, and I don't
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: even have to tell them not to do it. I
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: can just say what will happen if they continue to
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: do it? You know, it's not even about don't do
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: it anymore. I feel like that's a bad message as well,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 4: because it's like, what do we want to do as humans?
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: Everything that people tell us not to do?
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: That was Daniel Saunders, the original ATM boy Watch Out
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: for our film coming soon. I think he's found peace
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: and purpose from sharing his story, and others may benefit
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: from his experience and the insight that he's gained. I
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: find that gratifying because I was never comfortable with my
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: role in getting him locked up. Now, if you have
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: a problem with gambling or risk, please reach out for
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: some help. We put some links that may be useful
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: in the description, but if you have something you'd like
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: to get off your chest, like Dan did, drop me
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: an email at Adam Shand writer at gmail dot com.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: This has been Real Crime with Adam Shand. Thanks for listening.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
• 1:17:16
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• 1:17:19
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• 1:17:22
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• 1:17:26
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• 1:17:29
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• 1:17:32
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• 1:17:35
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