Pokies are a menace - so why are they in surf clubs?

Offering incredible view at a low cost and a lifesaving community service, surf clubs seem the epitome of Aussie culture. But there is one massive flaw – the pokies. SHOULD THEY BE BANNED? VOTE IN OUR POLL

When it comes to a Gold Coast summer, nothing is better than a surf club.

Offering champagne views on a beer budget and paired with a literal lifesaving community service, it’s the epitome of our Aussie culture.

But there is just one hole to poke in this theory: the pokies.

They seem the absolute antithesis of what our surf clubs represent – tucked away in a dark corner of the club, sunlight replaced by the glowing screens of gaming machines, the cries of seagulls and crashing of waves substituted with the electronic chirping and ringing of these sirens of gambling.

Most importantly, rather than saving lives they destroy them.

There are 21 Surf Life Saving Queensland clubs along our coastline, from Southport SLSC at Main Beach to Rainbow Bay SLSC on the state border, and only four of these clubs – Bilinga, Broadbeach, Pacific and Miami – do not have pokies.

For the remaining 17, they host an incredible 583 gaming machines, collecting an approximate $46 million from punters each year. Again, that is only on the Gold Coast.

An incredible 583 gaming machines are located in 17 surf clubs on the Gold Coast. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Now the argument is that, as well as supporting the operations of these clubs, the clubs give back these gambling profits to the community through sporting and community grants.

However annual reports published by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission show many pokies venues give a fraction of their gambling winnings to charity. In fact, the national average is around two per cent.

Further, these clubs receive massive taxpayer support and priceless beachfront land for free. That makes total sense when you consider the countless hours readily volunteered to save lives. But when you consider the millions these 17 pokie-carrying clubs accrue every year, it makes more dollars than sense.

It’s not like gamblers can’t find somewhere else to waste their money – from the casino to hotels to sports clubs, poker machines are all too common on the Coast.

The last thing I want to do is pick on the surf clubs, but their extraordinary popularity with families makes their gaming machines more problematic because of the exposure to children. After all, there aren’t too many youth teams at the bowls club compared to the Nippers program, and as fantastic as the RSLs and footy clubs are, they just don’t draw the family crowds like a beachfront venue.

I remember my own children wanting to explore the games room at our local surf club and having to explain that these were a different type of video game. Ones that were designed for players to lose.

The big question is: do our surf clubs need poker machines to survive?

I don’t claim to know the answer to this. The four clubs on the Coast that manage to operate without them are certainly less salubrious than those with gaming rooms, although, interestingly, Pacific SLSC at Palm Beach was named best club in Australia in 2016.

What I do know, because there is so much damning evidence, is the impact of these machines on our community.

Just anecdotally, I can count a handful of friends whose partners developed a gambling addiction from playing the pokies. Some of these relationships survived, some did not.

The official stats are even more sobering.

Queenslanders lost more than $5 billion to gambling in the 2022-23 financial year, with the losses an 11.3 per cent jump from the prior financial year, and more than half of the losses, or about $3.2 billion, coming from electronic gaming machines.

For every one problem gambler, the lives and safety of six people around them are affected.

A study by Monash University corroborated evidence that high densities of electronic gaming machines are associated with increased rates of family violence.

Just last year, Suicide Prevention Australia, the Alliance for Gambling Reform and Financial Counselling Australia came together to demand a significant rethink of the nation’s approach to gambling and finally treat it as a public health issue with new research indicating a significant percentage of suicides across Australia are related to gambling.

Even back in 2010, The Alfred Hospital in Victoria reported that one in five suicidal patients was a problem gambler, with the Alliance for Gambling Reform labelling poker machines “the crystal meth of gambling”.

While removing poker machines from surf clubs might not interfere with the life saving service itself, it could certainly change the face and feel of these beloved venues.

Like any good Gold Coaster, I love our surf clubs and I want to see them continue to thrive. But the inconvenient truth is that these fantastic venues are built on the back of a habit that is harming our families.

We have to decide what we’re prepared to lose.

Originally published as Pokies are a menace - so why are they in surf clubs?