Clubs pressured by new pokies laws

IF South Eastern Metropolitan Region MP Inga Peulich’s assessment of draft gaming machine regulations is near correct, then clubs such as the Tooradin Sports Club, the planned Kooweerup Indoor Bowls Social Club, and other community-based social clubs will die.
Ms Peulich said changes could see individual venues bid for poker machine entitlements.
Incredibly high profits are made from gaming machines so what in the long run will stop the big money from bidding the small operators out?
Governments always set these things up with softeners to make community organisations and people who volunteer their time feel warm and fuzzy but just wait and see what happens.
If a tender process is involved control will eventually go to maybe four or five monopolies and small community operators will just go.
That’s four or five big players at this stage because of the 30 per cent cap on machine ownership.
But the big money will squeeze smaller operators out of the game because of the 10-year limit on licenses.
Ten years is not enough surety to win bank finance.
Poker machines as we know them are a blight on society, but it was always argued they paid for wonderful social facilities, and they did.
Remember the bus trips to New South Wales.
Initially the machines were allowed in the community to finance social clubs and sporting facilities, with money available to pay high profile entertainers, and it was a ball.
This money should all have gone back into the community from machines supplied only from manufacturers and not machines owned by a few people who could set up franchises to peal off massive profits.
This tender process will put pubs out of business or put them all into one name.
We are hearing of plans to establish a $12 million Kooweerup and District indoor bowls social club.
Yes, it will need poker machines to make it viable or, I am told, it will only be a second-rate club.
My view is that we are moving into a dangerous era for the provision of gaming machines.