Victorian Action on Neopets - Major Daily Newspaper takes up the fight

Some action on the Neopet front. Victoria's main gambling activism groups, Interchurch Gambling Taskforce and Communities Acting on Pokies Problems are managed to get the attention of Melbourne's major daily newspaper the Herald-Sun.

Today the Herald-Sun published an article titled Not McHappy with blackjack for kids. (available here on the Herald-Sun Website or a pdf of the article here stored on the ghsouthern server )

It is great that there is some attention to this issue but I am not surprised by the responses of Mcdonalds and Neopets (Who have not responded to my email)

But McDonald's, which is giving away a Neopet toy with children's meals, said it did not endorse any forms of gambling and denied it was encouraging its customers to become involved in betting activities.
A spokeswoman said McDonald's investigated the website and felt it did not support gambling.
"There's a number of games you can play on that website. It's an interactive website, it's not a reality game," she said.
The spokeswoman said McDonald's was not responsible for the content of the Neopets website.
"Our partnership with Neopets is about collecting the plush toys.
"With regards to the website and what's on that, that was developed independently from McDonald's Australia."
Neopets executive vice-president Stephanie Jost-Cameron said the "luck/chance" games comprised a tiny portion of the site and were not aimed at younger children.
Ms Jost-Cameron said the online experience could teach children the consequences of gambling without actually losing real money.

Are you kidding? By gambling without any other information you only learn to gamble you don't learn about why you should gamble responsibly or anything about the risks and consequences. And Mcdonalds' argument is like the a person distributing child porn saying well we didn't make the site we are just promoting it, so its not our responsibility.

Well not so fast Mcdonalds and Neopets, this story is not over yet. Unfortunately the Mcdonalds Neopets promotion is a seed that will grow and with it groups like Interchurch Gambling Taskforce, Communities Acting on Pokies Problems and us here at Gambler's Help Southern will need to take action to inform parents in the wider community of the potential harms of Neopets.

We have just begun Neopets! So change or be changed!

GG