Club Mgmt. Bombers look to extend pokies lease

[ant555]

I think the fact we only lease the Melton Country Club excludes us from handing back the licences. If we quite the venue it operates under someone else with all 90 machines still there as far as i know.

 

[Bombermania]

_Swoon

I think Woolworths owns the large pub chain with the big pokies arm

It's not so much the supermarket that's evil (subjevtive)

I read somewhere that Woolworths owns 19% of all pokies, not sure if that is true but it was a finance source so it might be the case.

 

[Howard Moon]

I read somewhere that Woolworths owns 19% of all pokies, not sure if that is true but it was a finance source so it might be the case.

Think it's called the alh group (Australia leisure hospitality)

Alh on the ASX... I recall the barefoot investor spruiked it once..

ALH is a $1.5 billion venture, it is the country's largest provider of pokies, with more than 12,000 gaming machines in its pubs across Australia

 

[Jobe Watson]

We should be investing in brothels instead.

 

[Howard Moon]

We should be investing in brothels instead.

If the bikies have taught us anything about legitimate business....we need to invest in car washes

 

[citizen-erased]

Piss poor
no other way of saying it.

Fujitsu, Kia, ISC - and we need money from people gambling?

 

[Knox Harrington]

Perhaps we would be in the position of taking the moral high ground had the whole ASAGA not happened and we lost squillions in the process.

In an ideal world we wouldnt be involved in this business.

 

[TDay]

Totally reaching for the stick. Pokies are a disgrace, optimised the screw those who can least afford to be screwed.
Im sure we all agree that the club could use any public image improvements that it can get.

The science just keeps coming in, we are on the wrong side of this one. It is morally wrong to continue. Poor by the club.

 

[Old Campaigner]

Pokies are insidious and addictive, they cause massive social problems and according to the Alfred hospital one in five suicide attempts they deal with is linked to a gambling addiction.

As far as I am concerned this decision by the club is essentially saying they are ok with the consequences as long as it makes money.

The argument that if we were to give up the licenses someone else would take them is like saying it’s ok to sell drugs because if we stopped doing it people would just find another dealer.

 

[rumply]

The numbers we are looking at over both venues.

2016 - Food and Bev revenue $5'020'559
- poker machine revenue $8,519,447
- Total venue costs $11,083,238
- profit $2,096,768.

2017 - Food and Bev reveue $4,909,512
- poker machine revenue $8,441'784
- Total venue costs $11,075,142
- profit $2,276,154

That's some crutch they've engineered for themselves, isn't it.

 

[Howard Moon]

I see the train of thought in lumping sports betting, horse betting and pokies under the same umbrella as 'problem gambling' but I think there is an actual difference

with sports betting the addiction component is still revolving around choice - you may need to make money, but you choose to try and win it on the horse.. also, there is an element of skill involved should you be able to use it, there are actual games being played or animals racing that have some form or rhyme or reason to them.. (not condoning sports betting, just saying its a more fair fight and a choice)

The poker machine is a different story all together - it is a highly refined piece of technology specifically designed to addict people and take their money.

Brain activity of people addicted to poker matches the brain activity of people addicted to cocaine. There comes a point when it isn't a choice anymore, its a subconscious need. Everything about the machines has been tailored to hook and take, everything from the music, the particular imagery and trance inducing movements. The perennial near misses..... when you win, your brain gets a hit of dopamine, from this point on, all your brain needs is the further validation to keep that hit going. The machine dresses up losses as wins - to give you the next validation hit. you just spent a $5 spin but got a line of aces, you just won 4$ and the machine starts singing at you and saying well done your a champ!! ....you just lost a dollar.. but you still got your validation dopamine hit.. Studies show the near miss of a close jackpot gives you the same validation and dopamine hit as a win...

In old style machines, there were 3 fixed wheels with a certain number of figures on them - sure it was still set to win at a certain % but it was locked.

The new machines are just random number generators with funny pictures to help make you think its a set of wheels that may turn your way - the machine will constantly show you how close you were to winning big - they just add a few more good pictures to the nearly pile..

Still in the end, the figures are there - the odds are waaaaaay out of you favour - and smart people know that, intelligent people know that - hence why they are all strategically placed in lower social economic areas where people are less likely to know better.

insidious the entire game. and our mate Jeff Kennett, he of the beyond blue fame, the hero... ticked the boxes to let them legally be here. Probably knowing full well once its tendrils have snaked their way through society it can never we undone. Too many industries, governments and communities rely on it now - but I find it weird that most of the community hand outs probably go to the people who have fed the machine anyway

 

[fairbump_playon]

Dirty stuff.

It's easy to look at the bottom line of the venues and think it's impossible to get out - but what we should be doing is looking at how other clubs have managed to step away.

 

[Maddogm]

On the Woolworths side of things I'm kind of curious, how many of those pubs were bought to run pokies and how many were bought to install a Dan Murphys. Afaik they had big buy up of pubs across Australia and especially QLD when they were expanding the Dan Murphys brand as in QLD they could only open a bottle shop on the site of a pub. It's possible that this expansion led them to realise how much they were making off pokies. Did alcohol lead a national supermarket chain to a pokies addiction?

 

[Howard Moon]

On the Woolworths side of things I'm kind of curious, how many of those pubs were bought to run pokies and how many were bought to install a Dan Murphys. Afaik they had big buy up of pubs across Australia and especially QLD when they were expanding the Dan Murphys brand as in QLD they could only open a bottle shop on the site of a pub. It's possible that this expansion led them to realise how much they were making off pokies. Did alcohol lead a national supermarket chain to a pokies addiction?

what a business model!

pretty much had a duopoly on supermarkets - price gouging on their petrol stations and the pokies that can never lose

...then they go and make masters...

 

[Maddogm]

what a business model!

pretty much had a duopoly on supermarkets - price gouging on their petrol stations and the pokies that can never lose

...then they go and make masters...

Given that when Dan Murphys was a privately owned business with only 3 stores in Victoria it was the largest seller of alcohol in the country by both volume and dollars, beating all the national chains by healthy margin. I can understand why they went to great lengths to expand the brand.

 

[Howard Moon]

Given that when Dan Murphys was a privately owned business with only 3 stores in Victoria it was the largest seller of alcohol in the country by both volume and dollars, beating all the national chains by healthy margin. I can understand why they went to great lengths to expand the brand.

its funny though - when you have a few large warehouses it screams to you cheap crazy bargains, skid pallets and concrete floors - when you expand a chain to be on every second corner it loses that appeal to me - just becomes another chain with regular prices matched like everywhere else.

just a perception I know

 

[Maddogm]

its funny though - when you have a few large warehouses it screams to you cheap crazy bargains, skid pallets and concrete floors - when you expand a chain to be on every second corner it loses that appeal to me - just becomes another chain with regular prices matched like everywhere else.

just a perception I know

Also the current owners never went to jail for tax evasion in an effort to keep prices low

 

[Howard Moon]

Also the current owners never went to jail for tax evasion in an effort to keep prices low

is this what caused the brothers to spit? dan and phillip?

 

[Maddogm]

is this what caused the brothers to spit? dan and phillip?

They were father - son. That came from years of working together and squabbling.

http://www.executivestyle.com.au/no-sour-grapes-in-the-vineyard-for-murphy-pb7n

 

[Jivin Jackel]

If it's about football's brand image, the AFL should be the ones showing leadership, not individual clubs.

Then again, I would love to know how much revenue is created with gambling sponsorship?

Both sides of this discussion have great points for and against. It should be taken out of the clubs hands to make a decision like this.

 

[Howard Moon]

If it's about football's brand image, the AFL should be the ones showing leadership, not individual clubs.

Then again, I would love to know how much revenue is created with gambling sponsorship?

Both sides of this discussion have great points for and against. It should be taken out of the clubs hands to make a decision like this.

the AFL does not have a moral bone in its body - the only time they act on anything is when either a: their reputation is taking a hit or b:their bottom line looks like it might

neither will happen in this case.

Not helped by the fact the only group that can hold them to account are bought and paid for.. the afl media... will never speak ill of their lords or masters.

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

If we make less money don’t we just get more from AFL?

 

[Jade]

Whilst I understand we can’t just drop such a large revenue source, this is incredibly disappointing.

Not the kind of action I expected after our states desire to remove ourselves from this business.

 

[Bombermania]

I see the train of thought in lumping sports betting, horse betting and pokies under the same umbrella as 'problem gambling' but I think there is an actual difference

with sports betting the addiction component is still revolving around choice - you may need to make money, but you choose to try and win it on the horse.. also, there is an element of skill involved should you be able to use it, there are actual games being played or animals racing that have some form or rhyme or reason to them.. (not condoning sports betting, just saying its a more fair fight and a choice)

The poker machine is a different story all together - it is a highly refined piece of technology specifically designed to addict people and take their money.

Brain activity of people addicted to poker matches the brain activity of people addicted to cocaine. There comes a point when it isn't a choice anymore, its a subconscious need. Everything about the machines has been tailored to hook and take, everything from the music, the particular imagery and trance inducing movements. The perennial near misses..... when you win, your brain gets a hit of dopamine, from this point on, all your brain needs is the further validation to keep that hit going. The machine dresses up losses as wins - to give you the next validation hit. you just spent a $5 spin but got a line of aces, you just won 4$ and the machine starts singing at you and saying well done your a champ!! ....you just lost a dollar.. but you still got your validation dopamine hit.. Studies show the near miss of a close jackpot gives you the same validation and dopamine hit as a win...

In old style machines, there were 3 fixed wheels with a certain number of figures on them - sure it was still set to win at a certain % but it was locked.

The new machines are just random number generators with funny pictures to help make you think its a set of wheels that may turn your way - the machine will constantly show you how close you were to winning big - they just add a few more good pictures to the nearly pile..

Still in the end, the figures are there - the odds are waaaaaay out of you favour - and smart people know that, intelligent people know that - hence why they are all strategically placed in lower social economic areas where people are less likely to know better.

insidious the entire game. and our mate Jeff Kennett, he of the beyond blue fame, the hero... ticked the boxes to let them legally be here. Probably knowing full well once its tendrils have snaked their way through society it can never we undone. Too many industries, governments and communities rely on it now - but I find it weird that most of the community hand outs probably go to the people who have fed the machine anyway

It was Joan Kirner that allowed the introduction of pokies, sure Jeff allowed them to continue spreading. Before Joan made what she admits was her biggest mistake, to play the pokies you had to travel to towns along the Murray.

I agree with the rest of the comment, as I wrote yesterday, if you take sports bets, say the AFL, you have some control over your bets as it is fairly easy to pick winners as you can look at who is in and out plus previous form, like many people kind of expected Essendon to lose to Carlton, yet don't expect Carlton to win much else.

 

[BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!!]

Piss poor
no other way of saying it.

Fujitsu, Kia, ISC - and we need money from people gambling?

Thought we wre done with pokies.