Tuesday, 22 July
8.00pm

From the Logie-award winning team that brought us Dynasties, Family Fortunes is a four-part half-hour series that explores how dramatic reversals in fortune - for better or worse - have affected Australia's most interesting families.

Family Fortunes is a rare opportunity for viewers to enter the private homes of four families, as they reveal for the first time on television the intimate details of their history. In this new series, family members candidly discuss the unexpected incidents that have dramatically affected them - affairs, illness, car accidents, death and unjust wills - and the profound repercussions of these events. Each shares their unique perspectives, with great honesty and often great emotion.

The series profiles a range of families from across the country with diverse backgrounds, interests and issues. The series includes the untold story of racing legend Peter Brock's family; the extraordinary tale of pokie king Len Ainsworth and his family; the poignant story of the once-great Manifolds of Victorian squattocracy; and the fascinating behind-the-scenes family tale of Australia's own Picasso, John Olsen.

Episode Two: The Ainsworths

When Len Ainsworth started out he knew nothing of poker machines or gaming. He was a dentist's son with a mechanical bent who was meant to be studying to be a doctor. When someone suggested he build a poker machine he replied: 'What's a poker machine?'

From building an international empire, to giving it all away to his family following a cancer diagnosis, this private family, for the very first time, has allowed filmmaker Simon Target into their lives to tell a fascinating personal story. We go with Len, now aged 85, to Las Vegas where he has launched his new business, and we meet Len's children, now bearing the responsibility of a vast family fortune, investing the money made from Dad's poker machines into everything from garden centres and backpacker hostels, to the arts.