For the seventh year, Chinese Gambling Concern Inc. organised a stall during the Chinese New Year Festival to promote the community’s awareness of problem gambling and its adverse effect. This year, the stall was set up on Sunday, February 25, and the theme was "Think about the chances of your winning". We used a spinning wheel and invited visitors to "try out" and "experiment" with their chances of winning. The good thing about this exercise is that we are not saying that gambling is bad, rather, we expose people’s irrational belief that they will win, when in fact the chances are slim.

We attracted a crowd of people and received much positive feedback from the community. Some came to us and commented that we were the best stall of all in Chinatown. More interesting was the fact that out of 743 spins, only 2 hit the right selection. During this mock exercise, many shared with us their concern about the effect of gambling in the community. It was an exciting experience both for the working party and the general population.

I was joking with people lately that if I ran that stall as a gambling venue, and say each bet was $10, and 100 fold for those who win, I would have made $5,430 in profit. Ha! Ha!