One of the NSW government’s most senior ministers, Rob Stokes, has delivered a blistering attack on the reliance clubs have on poker machines, warning gambling generates demonstrable social harm with no community benefit.
In a powerful intervention as the debate over gambling reform in NSW intensifies, Stokes – a close ally of Premier Dominic Perrottet – said the “once friendly familiar local club, a traditional locus for thriving community, has been distorted and disfigured”.
The cities minister, whose speech has infuriated his Nationals colleagues because of his critical stance against the clubs industry, said there was no option but to “change the culture”.
“The comforting stereotype of a suburban bowlo nestled in a quiet street under the gum trees is far from the reality of many contemporary clubs – bloated concrete bunkers separated from their community by vast treeless carparks,” Stokes told parliament.
“Outwardly brutal, unwelcoming junk spaces, that all look the same. Inwardly, a fairyland of lights and delights – all directed to deprive the vulnerable of their savings.”
Stokes warned that areas in NSW with the lowest-paid workers have some of the highest losses to poker machines, ruining lives, families and hope for people across the state.
Cities Minister Rob Stokes speaks in parliament in August 2022.
He cited the latest NSW Liquor and Gaming figures, which show profits from poker machines – or losses for punters – hit a record $3.8 billion in the first half of 2022.
“Further entrenching inequality. Further entrenching disadvantage. Creating more broken homes. More lost opportunities. More unrealised potential,” Stokes said.
Stokes, who will retire from politics at the state election, gave the impassioned speech to parliament on Wednesday night where he pleaded: “We need to break our addiction to gambling.”
“Our registered clubs do good work in the community – whether it’s supporting veterans, sports clubs, or community groups,” Stokes said. “However, we cannot hide from an uncomfortable truth – that human misery is a financial lifeblood for many NSW clubs.”
His speech came as Perrottet pushes for a mandatory cashless gaming card to be rolled out in the state’s pubs and clubs in a bid to combat money laundering and conquer problem gambling.
Stokes wanted to show his support for the premier, who faces backlash from the clubs as well as the Nationals. NSW Labor leader Chris Minns has remained out of the debate, although said he would support a trial of a cashless card, as long as it was not mandatory.
“The premier has shown true leadership and is absolutely right when he says we have to do better. Contrast this with the leader of the opposition – who squibbed his chance to join a bipartisan push for action,” Stokes said.
Stokes said no other country in the world has “the local club as an integral part of every town, every suburb”, where they are “afforded a range of special treatments in tax, regulation, even in the planning system, on the basis that they provide unique benefits”.
“Machine gaming proved a cash cow, with extraordinary revenues fuelling malignant expansion of some clubs with ballooning assets, membership and facilities,” Stokes said.
“The original objective of community benefits has been superseded by an emphasis on expansion, market share, and profit. Machine gambling has become a dominant fiscal lever, distorting clubs so that the social agenda is subordinated to commercial interests.”
Stokes said it was now time to act.
“Gambling generates demonstrable social harm, but ephemeral community benefit,” Stokes said.
“The social contract justifying clubs’ capacity to offer harmful services is broken. The community has had a gutful – we need to renegotiate the social contract with clubs to ensure the equation adds up to hope, not harm.”
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