Melbourne makes bold decision to sever ties with poker machines
DESPITE generating millions of dollars each year for the AFL club, Melbourne has announced it no longer wants to rely on revenue from poker machines.
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MELBOURNE has severed ties with poker machines.
The Demons today announced they had taken action to handover their 180 pokies by selling Oakleigh’s Leighoak Club to the Moonee Valley Racing Club, while the club won’t renew its gaming entitlements at the Bentleigh Club when they expire in 2022.
The money spinners had generated an annual net profit of about $2 million, but Melbourne said its off-field growth meant it could afford to make the bold decision.
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North Melbourne is the only other Victorian club that doesn’t rely on poker machines.
Melbourne president Glen Bartlett and chief executive Peter Jackson said community sentiment, other business factors and a desire to focus on the club’s “core business” all played a part in the decision.
“I was on the inaugural board of the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation after I left Essendon, so I get it,” Melbourne chief executive Peter Jackson said.
“But I don’t think that necessarily means that all gaming and all wagering is evil. But I do get the issues and I think a sporting club; we exist because of the game and we exist because of people coming to the game.
“In that sense it feels better, but that’s a personal view.”
Jackson said there was no danger the move could put the club could at financial risk, eight years after the late Jim Stynes’ ‘Debt Demolition’ dragged the Demons out of the red.
He said the club’s emerging football team, which attracted the fifth-highest total attendance last year, would be a key component of making up the shortfall.
“It’s not a like-for-like comparison between gaming revenue and revenue you get out of football. If you take the gaming revenue out, you would have to increase the rest of our normal revenue by about 10 per cent to replace it,” he said.
“That’s not a big ask given where this football club has been ... and has grown to become profitable and strong financially. We don’t want to rely entirely on our footy team. We’ve got other ideas.
“We’ve probably got two to three years to readjust, I would have thought. The sale of Leighoak doesn’t take effect until July 31 and the Bentleigh Club decision doesn’t take effect until 2022 so we’ve got time to transition.
“It’s not like it’s going to be ‘whack’, there’s $2 million off the bottom line. We wouldn’t be that crazy to put something like that in place.”
AFL chairman Richard Goyder has made no secret of his distaste for pokies, declaring in November that there was a “real problem” with clubs profiting off problem gamblers.
But Bartlett denied AFL pressure played a part in the club’s decision.
“This was a club led decision. No pressure. There’s no financial assistance from the AFL,” Bartlett said.
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