Yeah I get that, but the club said it was exploring exiting what, 7 years ago now? They’ve had more than enough time to do it if they wanted to. The pies got rid of theirs in like 2 years max
3 Likes
I long for the days where out esport team was meant to be the venture that allowed us to move away from pokies
1 Like
They also said they were aiming to win finals and flags for the last 20 years. Maybe we should start with an acknowledgement in the constitution that losing causes emotional harm to our supporters.
I get your point, if the club said we’re selling the licenses and investing in a more profitable venture, nobody, not even Fox would have an issue with that. We all want the club profitable. I just don’t think the club has yet mastered its basic operations let alone a complex diversification of its revenue streams.
2 Likes
How long has it been talked about that pokies will be banned though? It never happens. Government makes a huge amount of money off them and the Labor party I’m pretty sure their campaigns come election time are funded by pokies profits. At least federally and in nsw.
Hawthorn sold Club Vegas to Melbourne Racing Club, as that venue held a club licence.
Their other venue, West Waters, had a hotel licence and was able to be sold to Oscars as a result.
Essendon’s two venues are run under club licences:
So your statement that it’s either a choice between Essendon having profit and the community benefiting, or a Bruce Mathieson type getting richer is incorrect.
And we can look to Adelaide, Collingwood, Fremantle, Geelong, Gold Coast, GWS, Hawthorn, Melbourne, North Melbourne, Sydney, West Coast and the Bulldogs (i.e. every club without pokies) and see that they still manage to visit schools, sports clubs, hospitals and remote Aboriginal communities without it being some sort of offset.
3 Likes
They won’t be banned, they’ll just be more and more regulated which will cut directly into the revenue they produce - eg, the new reforms in Vic are going to reduce spin rates by 40% and cap the amount of money you can load into a machine at one time to $100. That affects how much people can spend during a visit to the venue, which will reduce money made, which will reduce how much the club profits in the long run.
Some other states have $100/day caps on losses. So what could potentially happen in Vic is first you force everyone onto cashless cards to use machines, then you cap how much they can load onto that card at a time, then you cap how much they can take off that card per day.
Stuff like this, every single social consideration aside, is why the club should be looking to exit the industry as soon as they can
4 Likes
I’m a big believer in needing to separate the different administrations when talking about what the club has done in the past, but that’s also a key reason why I think it’s important to keep the pressure on the club, even when they make positive statements about their focus on developing alternative revenue streams.
We’ve seen 31 board members since 2010 under 5 different presidents, so the position of the club today isn’t necessarily going to be the position of the club in the near future. Without a commitment to exiting pokies, they are additional revenue streams not alternatives.
3 Likes
So are you actually somehow trying to suggest that if the EFC sold their licence that nobody else would get richer from it? Do you imagine the Melbourne Racing club are going to be sending out jockeys to the schools? Better yet send out a few bookies to teach the kids about odds & multis! Do you believe the MRC controlling more pokies has less of a negative social impact? If so how. You have avoided it again but can you at least try to give me 1 single solitary advantage EFC, its members, the greater public or problem gamblers get from changing the licensee written above the venue’s door?
Maybe you might want to believe we can just rely on AFL handouts like North, GWS, GC to survive or maybe you are deluded enough to believe we are as well run as clubs who do profit without pokies BUT as you pointed out, the amount of board & CEO changes we’ve had has been systematic of a poorly run club. To think we have been or currently are well placed to be leveraged into an early exit from this revenue stream seems obviously ignorant to me. The fact is that the EFC is currently reliant on pokies revenue to make a profit & provide all the services it does. Until the club can find a way to replace that revenue everything else is irrelevant.
1 Like
Poker machines located at a race track are far less dangerous than machines located on High Street. If you take away the opportunity to gamble by simply changing location then it is a win.
Western Bulldogs and Melbourne have won premiership while "being under the control of the AFL’. Might be an attractive option. God knows we could have done with a 2nd opinion on some of the appointments we have made.
1 Like
You know they didn’t move the machines to a race track yeah?
1 Like
Well if the suns were introduced under the Southport sharks club, they wouldn’t have cost the afl anywhere near as much and that money could have instead gone into grassroots footy on the gold coast.
Heck, the nrl clubs in nsw and qld basically exist off pokies dens, they barely make any money off the actual sport. It’s another reason why they’ll likely never be banned up there, at least in nsw.
2 Likes
Rather than commenting on your strawmen or shifting goal posts, I’ll just respond to the bolded bit.
At least years AGM Dave Barham was asked about environmental issues and he answered:
“organisations now are being judged - in a couple of years’ time we’ll all be judged on our ESG, how we present our club, what we do about the environment, sustainability (social) and governance, so big sponsors will now only deal with clubs and sporting organisations that have that in hand”
Now he got the S part mixed up, it’s social, but there’s no doubt he knows what ESG is and how it relates to the club. So regardless of what anyone’s individual beliefs on pokies are, it’s clear that if they’re not already, they will in the future play a role in making it difficult for the club to land big sponsors. That’s one advantage to the club and subsequently its members, keeping in mind too that our position is and always has been that the club should make a strategically planned exit with replacement revenue streams.
We’re not asking for an early or unplanned exit. We’re asking that they develop and commit to plan that allows them to exit and don’t instead decide that it’s too hard.
2 Likes
If the same rules for pokies that apply at Crown are everywhere then it can be regulated with mandatory daily limits. Probably could be manipulated somehow, but seems effective.
I have never heard any Government talk about banning them. They talk regulation but never banning, as next step would be all gambling and that would not end well for anyone.
Tassie talked about it but has canned it. What other State has this in place ? None I have been to.
Coming our way…
You’re asking to change the constitution of the club to fit your personal morals & have again failed to present any quantifiable advantage the club gets from doing it. Imagining it may effect future sponsorship deals is not a reason to exit pokies. We generate about 15m in receipts from both venues (including meals, drinks etc) & we total about 16m from all sponsorships & marketing. Even if there was a specific sponsor who decided they wouldn’t support the club based on the licences they are nowhere near worth what we lose from those venues. As has been pointed out numerous times, we can’t simply separate the venues from the pokies so we have to lose all that revenue.
Once again I’m willing to bet that you are in fact seeking to force an early unplanned exit but know that it will hurt your agenda to be transparent. Having it in the constitution is a leverage tool to force your outcome. Do you at least have some suggestion on how to cover the cost of forcing this motion to a vote, the cost of changing the constitution & then again the need to change it again if/when the club does sell the licence. I assume we’ll have to have another vote to have it removed?
I’ll try one last time to get an answer to a simple question - do you believe there is less social harm if the Melbourne Racing club take over the licence? Do you believe other clubs selling their licences has had any positive effects on problem gamblers? According to the Vic responsible gambling foundation losses on pokies has increased in recent years. If you take out the covid closures the losses 2018-19 were about 2.6B & more recently its up to just over 3B.
If you took out the bit about acknowledging social harm, you might get more support.
That is $100 load up, not $100 a day.