Challenging current understandings about the introduction of gambling to remote Aboriginal

communities in Northern Australia

Marisa Fogarty

Postdoctoral Fellow

ANU Centre for Gambling Research marisa.fogarty@anu.edu.au

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This research was conducted for my PHD as part of an ARC Linkage project between Charles Darwin University and the Northern Territory Government.

Introduction of gambling;

- European influence

- Macassan influence

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Picture 1.2: ‘Men’ 1945 – Aboriginal men playing cards at the Elliot, some in army

uniforms (Northern Territory Library 1945).

Macassan

trepang trade

routeSource: Johnson in Blair and Hall

(2013) Travelling the ‘Malay Road’:

Recognising the heritage

significance of the Macassan

maritime trade route

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During the mission times, the nature of dopulu (card games) changed, the

missionaries brought both the possibility of gambling for money and the

opposition to gambling. Through money, dopulu changed from a game (wakal) to

‘serious’. It was really the Europeans who showed us how to gamble properly for

money. The old people didn’t play in front of the missionaries. It’s good for

people not to gamble in public, it’s really not part of our culture (Christie &

Greatorex 2009, p. 10).

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Picture 1.1: Johnson 1876, ‘A game of euchre’ Australasian Sketcher, 23 December,

Melbourne, Victoria.

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Our plate depicts a scene not unfrequent [sic] at some of the out-of-the-way gold-fields in this, or either of the other colonies, and especially in Queensland, where the three races shown are found living closely mixed together. It is a bright Saturday afternoon, and Jack, the black packer[tracker], ' Harry, my friend,' the digger, and Ah Sin, the Chinese fossicker, have met to while away an hour or two at a game of ' cut- throat euchre’ for a pennyweight a corner. On the present occasion fortune has smiled on Ah Sin. It was his deal, and he has ' taken it up’. He is 'all but.' The digger is only four, and the aboriginal has not ' turned his cards,' or, in other words, has not made a point. The Chinaman has taken the first trick on suit and led the ace of trumps. The European has the king, say, and a small one. Jack holds the queen. But it is no service, for Ah Sin, as his complacent smile seems to indicate, has the 'left bower' and two small ones in reserve. He is sure of the point wanting to bring him through triumphant, and he already enjoys the pleasure of victory … But it may be that there is a meaning in the picture besides the plain matter-of-fact one that appears on the surface. The three races have been for some time playing a game for life on this continent. The aboriginal race have very nearly played their last card, and the game is henceforth between the whites and their yellow-skinned competitors. John Chinaman holds his own remarkably well, and in some parts, as in North Queensland, scores one point after another. The immense extent of Chinese immigration to that region some time back was viewed with alarm, and the thought expressed in Bret Harte's poem, 'we’re ruined by Chinese cheap labour,' was present to the minds of large numbers of the colonists. But although that colony has seen fit to adopt measures intended to act as a restriction on the influx, the alarm appears to have practically died out, and there is no reason to doubt that the two races may work on amicably together and aid in the development of an immense territory, where 'there's room enough for all (Johnston 1986).

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Figure 1.1: Ethnic composition of the Northern Territory (Ganter 2006)

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Like Aborigines, Asians were a problem population subject to a medical-moral

policing rationale. Anxiety about the Chinese was expressed as illicit sexual relations,

unsanitary and crowded housing conditions, and concerns over smallpox, leprosy,

opium addiction and gambling, couched in the moral lexicon of filth, laziness and

lasciviousness (Ganter 2006, p. 119).

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During the last week or so our police have been actively endeavoring to suppress

certain forms of Palmerston vice, but they have not yet got beyond gambling and

aboriginal opium dealing. Last Friday night a couple of constables raided a well-

known Chinese- gambling den and scattered their forceful attentions broadcast

among the inmates (Northern Territory Gazette 1894, p.2)

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Aborigines wandered the filthy streets, drunk on methylated spirits and willing to

hawk their wives for the price of another drink. Venereal disease was rife;

alcohol and opium addiction were commonplace; there were gambling dens and

dives that catered for all the vices; and leprosy was spreading (McKenzie 1976,

p.103).

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…‘sly-grog’ and opium selling which were often an integral part of gaming dens,

accompanied by ‘white- and black-slaving,’ prostitution and drunken orgies …

shows how forcible and disastrous was the initial clash of local aboriginal

groups with the incoming aliens (Berndt and Berndt 1947, p.249).

Thank you!

Contact:

marisa.fogarty@anu.edu.au

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