Alliance for Gambling Reform is advocating for the State Government to help clubs divest from pokie machines.
The alliance is calling for a ‘surrender scheme’ as an “ideal solution” for clubs who no longer want to retain their pokies license and want it taken off the market.
Rebecca Paterson, the alliance’s director of policy, leadership councils and government engagement, says there is interest from clubs to exit but simply can’t due to the lack of systems in place.
“There are definitely a lot of clubs that no longer want to have pokies partly because they don’t make enough money.
“Also it’s partly because they are concerned about the social impact of gambling, they see it causing harm and don’t want to participate.
“But the way the pokies license is structured, they have payments they need to continue to the State Government – entitlement payments for the machines.
“I think larger venues and owners where they have multiple venues are making a profit and the Government receives its shares of fees and taxes, which is a reasonably healthy amount.”
According to the alliance, the government garnered a whooping $2.28 billion in revenue from gambling taxes in 2022-’23, which equates to 6.94 per cent of total state tax revenue .
In the same year, $7.14 billion was lost by gamblers, which equates to $1401 loss per adult on average.
Gambling taxes to the state government has been as high as 11 per cent in previous years.
There’s at least one club in every municipality that wants to call it quits Ms Paterson says.
“Clubs tend to take in less revenue in machines than hotels, because club require individuals to give in their license, sign in, don’t have a quiet place with a lot of the members being well known.
“It’s terrible that we don’t have a mechanism to support (divesting pokies).”
The State Government’s gambling reforms include a recent trial on precommitment cards for pokies gamblers in Greater Dandenong, mandatory closure periods from 4am-10am, slowing spin rates of new gaming machines, limiting EFTPOS cash withdrawals and capping machine numbers until 2042.
The Alliance is also advocating for a review of the Community Benefit Scheme (CBS) associated with the Clubs and the types of spending that can qualify as ‘community benefits’.
It claims the scheme is being rorted with clubs giving 77 per cent ($241.7 million out of $311.6 million) of all community grants to their own infrastructure and operations.
“The majority are things that people wouldn’t benefit from – paid tv subscriptions, salaries, insurance, basically anything and everything.
“We would love them to be instead genuine benefits.”
Under the scheme, clubs can claim a tax deduction of 8.33% by verifying they have invested at least 8.33 per cent of their net gaming revenue back to the community.
The scheme is supposed to share benefits to local communities and offset potential harms of increased gaming machines in the local areas.
Meanwhile, City of Greater Dandenong Council has welcomed the new gambling trial saying it looks forward to the outcome of the card trial.
“Our Council has had a strong and consistent commitment to minimising gambling-related harm,” deputy mayor councillor Sophie Tan says.
“We remain dedicated to supporting all initiatives aimed at its prevention.
“We also encourage the Victorian Government to reconsider the timetable for poker machine reforms. It is long overdue.”
