The Canberra Southern Cross Club has hit out at the targeting of clubs in the fight against problem gambling, saying successive changes over the past decade have dramatically hit revenue to the point the club is now making a loss.
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Instead of targeting Canberra clubs, the government should be looking to gamblers across the border in NSW and the dangers of online gambling, the club group said in a submission to the ACT Assembly's inquiry into poker machines and the future of clubs.
"What is it about clubs' reliance on gaming revenue which makes it a 'real problem'?" the club asked, quoting Greens Assembly member Shane Rattenbury. "And why is it that Canberra's clubs, but apparently no other sector of our community, need to move away from this reliance?"
Clubs were a safer place to gamble than online at home, or in NSW where regulations were less stringent, it said, calling on the government to cast a much wider net.
The club was frustrated "at the apparent lack of understanding within government of the competitive challenges we now operate under", it said, pointing to the ban on $50 and $100 notes in poker machines in 2004, the smoking ban in 2006, an increased poker machine tax in 2007, and limits on ATM withdrawals in 2014, each of which had seen a dramatic and immediate impact on revenue. From profits of more than $2 million a decade ago, the club was facing a loss this year.
"The collective impact of these regulatory changes on gaming have been enormous, wiping out healthy, albeit modest, profits, which had allowed the club to reinvest in infrastructure, maintain strong levels of employment at its venues and over time allow us to extend the reach of its services throughout the territory," the club said.
Now, it had been forced to cut staff and close unviable businesses, including the Yamba club, the Kaleen club, the Turner club and its pitch and putt golf course in Woden. Next, it would cut opening hours and donations to sports and other groups.
Gaming revenue was now $23 million a year, half its overall revenue.
"[The club] supports the twin objectives of reducing the level of gambling in the territory and assisting the most vulnerable problem gamblers - the two objectives go hand in hand. However, context is everything, and there is no point in introducing reforms if the result is the further closure of clubs."
The club had looked to diversify, including investing in gyms, and wanted to redevelop its former pitch and putt site with childcare, health, and potentially retirement homes, but needed help to do so, it said, pointing out that the recently released master plan for Woden made no mention of the potential of the site.
The Southern Cross Club did rely on gaming revenue but not on problem gamblers, it said. "Community clubs find problem gamblers a problem – one which requires considerable attention and which are at odds with the rest of the family and community social ethos which we are seeking constantly to create."
