The dancing lights and jaunty tunes so evident and annoying to non-players barely register with those sitting in front of the machines.

As if on autopilot, they hit button after button in search of the right combination of symbols that will deliver them a return on their investment.

Anyone who plays the pokies regularly will have their own strategies and superstitions.

Past experiences see certain machines considered lucky, while others are forever branded as non-payers.

Rarely does a collect on the pokies – even a substantial collect – sate a person’s desire to play.

Instead, it just fuels a powerful compulsion to keep going, often playing for ever higher stakes, as they chase that really big score.

The sobering reality is, however, that the house always wins. 

Play long enough and you are guaranteed to lose. There is simply no way to beat the top secret algorithms programmed into the machines.

Experts say poker machines are a particularly insidious and addictive form of gambling.

They point not only to their ubiquity, but the carefully crafted features within the games themselves that are designed to stimulate the brain’s pleasure centre – just like any drug.

For the vast majority of the population, the spell cast by these machines is temporary.

When the initial outlay of $10 or $20 or $50 or more is exhausted they can walk away with nothing more than a rueful shrug.

But for an increasing number of people, pokies present a problem.

They cannot just walk away. They are compelled to keep playing, chasing their losses and searching for that elusive win.

Once an addict’s own bank account is emptied, too often they turn to other sources – begging, borrowing and stealing.

The Bendigo RSL is acting entirely within the law in securing the rights to 12 additional poker machines.

But do not for a second think they won’t have a deleterious effect on the community.

- Ross Tyson, deputy editor