nah that’s not what I said at all dude
I didn’t vote for the amendment. I think we should transition away from pokies.
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I thought he said the same at first.
But he said the value of the lease (which I’m assuming he means the value of the license).
Which he’d be correct.
But you won’t sell the license on its own. You’d likely sell the entire business, license, equipment and whatever current lease agreement they have in place
I’d say the overall price will be more in a year than it is now.
I’m not sure if the drop in value whenever the government decide to take some action against pokies + whatever discount for the ‘but they may do x in a few years time’ will offset the increase in value in other areas (the value of the business would have a covid affected year included in it, but it may not in a year or two’s time).
You can eliminate the risk of it by selling now and forgetting about it though. But they’d have a decent idea if the profit is actually growing each quarter compared to previous years.
I don’t think it’s as simple as sell now because you won’t get a better price later on. There’s probably more to it.
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Um, 2,779 is less than my estimated 4000…
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Then we’re probably talking past each other.
Or you could flip it and say that only 8% of eligible voting members voted against the resolution.
The Pokies liability isn’t going away.
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“We lose, you lose!”.
That’s the new game day promotion.
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Until Essendon can build a sustainable business model without pokies, and that’s not in the foreseeable future, the Club needs to retain them to survive.
Fixing footy (1) and seeing improvement in the Clubs operating performance (2) are the immediate priorities for the Club to focus on.
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I’m quoting Tim Costello from the article because he sums it up perfectly.
“These footy clubs really have trashed their social licence,” Mr Costello said.
"It’s complete hypocrisy, because we now know the extraordinary social damage of pokies. We know the suicides, the domestic violence, we know the crime, and we know the kids go hungry.
“For cornerstones of the community … it’s completely hypocritical for them to have pokies machines that are doing such damage, and claim that they are a community actor for good.”
PS. We are still participating in “Love the Game, Not the Odds” as we continue to run 190 poker machines. The odds on the poker machines are 15% against you, which over time is lucrative.
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Sorry, but the Club does not need them to survive.
Maybe if the Club was more focussed on running a football club rather than a gambling operation, it might have better success on the field?
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I don’t get why the few afl clubs that have pokies always cop stick about this, when up in Sydney and QLD the whole NRL is basically run off gambling money and their clubs off pokies machines. It’s a strange double standard.
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At the moment it does. The club would be in a trading deficit without them. The Board needs to fix its operating performance, or find an alternative source of cash flow / profit before it can offload them. If they need to at all.
Given that a percentage of pokies profits are supposed to go to the community, maybe having a sporting club (if afl clubs are still considered sporting clubs), rather than some nondescript company should result in better benefits for the community.
I appreciate that there seems to be a lot of holes in the spending of the profit percentage on community benefits.
I’m a member of the Essendon Football Club not the South Sydney Rabbitohs. I deeply care that my club is being funded through the misery of others. That is not what community clubs should be doing.
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The issue is that the poker machines losses have to come from somewhere before they are distributed to the “community”. The hard truth is that the losses come from people that cannot afford it and as a result don’t have insurance, struggle to put food on the table, struggle to fund their children’s basic education needs etc etc The club does not like to talk about owning poker machines as that means they have to confront where and from whom the losses are coming from. It’s a very uncomfortable truth.
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Currently we don’t meet many sponsors ESG requirements so by having poker machines we are stopping meaningful sponsorship discussions including talking with existing sponsors to increase their involvement.
The AFL would step in and make sure we weren’t insolvent. That may be uncomfortable and not a wanted outcome but it may serve as a short term bridging solution.
Finally we may be able to sell some or all of the licences and while we may not get much for them (as they are community licences) that may buy us some time to explore greater income streams.
It is really just a matter of how much the club is willing to be involved in a business that is designed to take money from our community.
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Why ? Just like any addiction there is lots of support if they want it. Nothing uncomfortable about Bombers business activities for me. Though I concede it is the height of hypocrisy to advocate about gambling prevention and operate gambling devices.
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So it’s ok to do something which causes significant harm to people because they can seek help for the harm caused?
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Go away, you pest
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