It is a quiet night in Fairfield, in Sydney’s western suburbs. Inside a small brick building, a dozen Gamblers Anonymous members help themselves to coffee, tea and miniature meat pies. The meeting is taking place in a suburb that has one of the city’s lowest median incomes, and highest levels of gambling losses. A fifth of the state of New South Wales’s 25 most profitable gaming clubs are here, according to government data.
One of these clubs, Fairfield Returned and Services League (RSL), is just a two-minute walk away. It is a building totally at odds with the modest apartment blocks and shabby train station nearby. A pedestrian walkway inside is lined with palms and ferns, it has an elaborate fountain, a grand lobby. It seems…
