Tim Costello on the spiritual hold gambling exerts over Australian politics, culture, and identity.

---

Tim Costello knows a thing or two about how to fight social justice battles on multiple fronts simultaneously.

The ex-World Vision CEO, lawyer, Baptist preacher, spokesperson for the End Covid For All campaign, and Senior Fellow of CPX has also campaigned against gambling and the pervasiveness of pokies in our pubs and clubs for 25 years.

In October, the Victorian Royal Commission into Crown Casinos found that Crown’s illegal, unethical, and exploitative conduct made it “unfit” to operate a casino. And yet the organisation was still given two years to clean up its act.

Tim has been a strident critic of Crown since its inception. In this Life & Faith, he reflects on why and how Crown became “too big to fail”, the impact of gambling addiction on people’s lives, and the national myth Australia tells about itself – that it’s a nation of gamblers.

---

Explore:

Tim’s article in The Saturday Paper

Tim’s July 2021 op-ed in The Sydney Morning Herald

---

Life & Faith Survey: We love making this podcast and would value your thoughts about what we do and how we could do it better. Please consider taking 5 minutes to do this short survey – https://bit.ly/3082yW9. Thanks.