The AFL, Clubs and Pokies thread

A couple of days later they wrote an article about a fairer afl funding/equalisation distribution and applied polices of NFL, MLB and the EPL TV sharing deal.

Edit this is the graph from the other article, I put this post and the other one in the 2015 annual reports thread before The_Wookie moved this post to this new thread. See
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/thre...on-now-complete.1117322/page-19#post-48314073


revenue-by-source2.png


https://hurlingpeoplenow.wordpress....-a-fairer-model-for-afl-funding-distribution/

but The_Wookie as you closed the Pokie thread I will quote their pokie stuff and graph without Pokie revenue to show the impact on 2015 financials for the clubs.

The big jingly elephant in the room
Gaming machine revenue is a massive influence in Australian sport in a way that it isn’t in these aforementioned leagues. Poker machines are insanely prevalent in Australia and do huge social damage. This isn’t an opinion; it’s a fact. This post by Greg Jericho illustrates (using hard data) the nearly unique damage they do due to the speed and automated nature of play.

Below is what the AFL clubs’ revenue would look like if, over night, the governments of Victoria, Queensland, and South Australia had outlawed poker machines.

no-pokies.png


That’s $110m in gaming takings, from $876m in total club revenue. It’s a significant amount to be removing. Clubs argue that they have little choice but to rely on this money, and it’s not hard to see why. Below is our modelling of what each club’s profit and loss situation would look like if pokies were removed:

p-and-l-no-pokies.png



Based on the research we have done, we think that a generous assumption is that 25% of the revenue from pokies are extracted as profit. The rest of that revenue will of course go to maintaining the venues containing the pokies – to operating costs and to subsidised food and drink, and perhaps on other donations (including charitable ones).

Some clubs, such as Port Adelaide, barely make any profit on having poker machines after costs – South Australia does not permit any denomination of notes to be bet in poker machines, while Queensland permits $100 notes to be fed into the machines.

Some clubs, traditionally seen as battlers who are forced to rely on the machines, look like they’d actually be relatively okay without them. The 2015 reported profit of $400k at the Bulldogs becomes a $900k loss. That’s significant, but perhaps not crippling. Most importantly, the AFL could likely compensate for the short term loss with redistributed funds.

St Kilda only earn about $2m in gross revenue from pokies, so the modelled half-million deterioration in their net profit is nowhere near as big as some other clubs would face.

Other, more pokie revenue reliant, clubs (Carlton and Brisbane for example), look more heavily embedded. And Hawthorn, who made a $5m profit last year, look like they could divest from their $18m in gaming revenue fairly easily right now.

At least 40% of pokies losses are by problem gamblers according to the Productivity Commission. That means AFL clubs are presently benefiting to the tune of about $44m a year from people with gambling addictions.

Our point here is simply to show that pokies are a policy choice for each club, and that they have a benefit and a cost. Perhaps the AFL would be able to, with its ample revenues, navigate poorer clubs out of their dependence on this source of revenue. The new broadcast deal, bringing in potentially tens of millions of new distribution to AFL clubs, would seemingly provide the ideal opportunity to reshape the financial landscape for the better.

And ultimately this is the conclusion that HPN keeps arriving at – that a more equitable (but not even) distribution of funds would be one of the biggest drivers towards competitive equalisation, especially at a time which the AFL is receiving an influx of funds.

https://hurlingpeoplenow.wordpress....-a-fairer-model-for-afl-funding-distribution/
 
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Jul 2, 2010
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“Community Benefits”

AFL clubs allowed to claim a tax break of 8.3 per cent on pokies revenue if they can prove they are spending at least that much on community initiatives. As stated in the Gambling Regulation Act 2003, club venue operators are required to prepare and lodge an audited community benefit statement with the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) for every financial year in which they receive gaming machine revenue.

In 2010, it was reported that the Collingwood Football Club has used a legal loophole to get taxpayers to help cover $2.7 million it spent on running the club and its pokies venues in the past year, describing the operating costs as a ”community benefit”. Of the total $18.9 million AFL clubs claimed to have paid out in community benefits in 2009-10, only $5.9 million was under the ”class A” category, which defines genuine charitable purposes.

In early 2016 it was reported that clubs are “rorting” the system, having claimed $50 million of “community benefits” in the past three years. Of that, $33 million was spent on the operating costs of 17 pokies venues run by Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Geelong, Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda, Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs.
  • Carlton claimed almost $1.1 million for Ikon Park — including fertiliser and seeds for the turf, airconditioning and its spa — from its venues in Bulleen, Laverton, Richmond and Williamstown.
  • Richmonds Wantirna Club gave away just $6248 but claimed almost $1.7 million of its operating costs.
  • Geelong claimed $55,074 for works on the Hickey Stand at Simonds Stadium. It donated $25,715 from its two venues but claimed almost $1.5 million of their operating costs.
  • St Kilda claimed $236,165 for a club family day and to sponsor its VFL affiliate team Sandringham.
  • Essendon claimed almost $1.9 million in operating costs, but was more generous, donating $170,000 to local sports clubs and $160,000 to youth and indigenous programs.
  • Collingwood Football Club’s venue in Caroline Springs, The Club, claimed $767,357 in operating costs as a community benefit
  • Hawthorn Football Club’s Vegas at Waverley Gardens claimed $751,345 in operating costs as a community benefit.
In 2016, Hobsons Bay councillors Colleen Gates and Angela Altair called on Carlton to increase funding for local sports and employment programs in Hobsons Bay, where its 120 machines reaped $8.3 million in the 2014/15 financial year. Ms Altair said she would also like to see some of the club’s pokie earnings returned to the Hobsons Bay community.

It was reported in June 2016, that Melton Shire was applying presurre to Collingwood to stump up cash for gambling support programs in Melbourne’s outer western suburb of Caroline Springs where the club operates a lucrative pokies venue.
 
The graphic from this story in The Age on April 4 2016 which is before the breakdown shown in The_Wookie's post in post #4 of this thread.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/hawthorn-tops-the-pokies-losses-ladder-20160404-gnxys2.html
Hawthorn might be sitting at seventh place on the AFL ladder at the moment, but when it comes to poker machines it sits comfortably on top. Almost a quarter of the $92.6 million that Victorian punters lost at pokies venues connected with AFL clubs last year went into Hawthorn's machines.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/hawthorn-tops-the-pokies-losses-ladder-20160404-gnxys2.html

http://infogr.am/afl_club_level_pokies_data
upload_2017-1-4_14-25-54.png
 
I wish they included the non Vic clubs with pokies in these graphics, etc.
Look at the first graph and read the story and you will see Port and Brisbane are the only non Vic club that has gaming facilities.

WA bans gaming machines outside the Casino so they don't have any income from them. The crows never had any because the SANFL had their tavern at Footy Park bringing in the $$$ for the SANFL. Southport FC are the major sponsors of GC FC and they have most of their functions at Southport. Southport had $20m cash in the bank mid 2000's when they were chasing an AFL licence. GWS don't have any facilities. Sydney had some deal with the Aussie Rules club in the Cross but that seems to have gone by the wayside.Edit it went into voluntary administration in late 2011.

Port make around $2.8m to $3mil from their pokies, before costs, which they had before they entered the AFL. They sold 10 of their 73 gaming machines 3 or 4 years ago around the time of the move to AO. Brisbane as the other story from HPN I linked in the 2015 annual reports thread says " Brisbane’s Springwood venue operated at about a $3.8m profit in 2015, costing $12m to run and bringing in $15.8m. That’s including an estimated $14.8m in pokies revenue using the assumption that their 200 machines operate at the average productivity of Logan’s ~2000 machines."
 
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Look at the first graph and read the story and you will see port is the only non Vic club that has gaming facilities.

WA bans gaming machines outside the Casino so they don't have any income from them. The crows never had any because the SANFL had their tavern at Footy Park bringing in the $$$ for the SANFL. Southport FC are the major sponsors of GC FC and they have most of their functions at Southport. Southport had $20m cash in the bank mid 2000's when they were chasing an AFL licence. GWS don't have any facilities. Sydney had some deal with the Aussie Rules club in the Cross but that seems to have gone by the wayside.

Port make around $2.8m to $3mil from their pokies, before costs, which they had before they entered the AFL. They sold 10 of their 73 gaming machines 3 or 4 years ago around the time of the move to AO. Brisbane as the stories says The other story from HPM I linked in the 2015 annual reports thread says " Brisbane’s Springwood venue operated at about a $3.8m profit in 2015, costing $12m to run and bringing in $15.8m. That’s including an estimated $14.8m in pokies revenue using the assumption that their 200 machines operate at the average productivity of Logan’s ~2000 machines."

I did, and sorry to imply otherwise, I was referring more to the graphics in the later posts. (and to be clear, not to those who posted them as I know both you and Wookie are well aware that pokies extend beyond Vic and are just posting the material available).
 

DemonTim

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Be intersted to see the money that suburban clubs make too
Seems to be the ones with pokies are the ones who throw big cash at players and always finish near top.
 

Garlic muncher

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Be intersted to see the money that suburban clubs make too
Seems to be the ones with pokies are the ones who throw big cash at players and always finish near top.

Cant speak for Melbourne, but just look at Southport in QLD or in Canberra Ainslie and Eastlake, long established clubs, in Ainslie and Eastlakes case they operate several clubs each across Canberra.
 

DemonTim

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Cant speak for Melbourne, but just look at Southport in QLD or in Canberra Ainslie and Eastlake, long established clubs, in Ainslie and Eastlakes case they operate several clubs each across Canberra.
It's like that in melbourne but i'd compare southport, ainslie to VFL clubs. Whereas in melbourne it's your local clubs doing it too.
 
May 13, 2012
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Of Hawthorn's $70 mill in revenue, $20 mill is from pokies - the largest percentage of any club.

Over half of that, and the biggest single take from any venue in the AFL, is from a facility on the border of City of Melton and City of Brimbank, two of the most disadvantaged areas in Melbourne.

As the Australian Centre for Gambling Research notes, the adult residents of Sunshine average losses of $1,400 per annum, compared to the residents of Box Hill, in Hawthorn's backyard, who only lose $400 per annum on pokies.

As a percentage of disposable income, that significant gap in annual losses becomes an abyss.

Hawthorn has effectively hit the top of the pops in annual revenue by preying on the most disadvantaged and poorest people of Melbourne.

All of this helps to entrench disadvantage in Melbourne's poorer suburbs.

As the Australian Centre for Gambling Research goes on to say:

In total, the more disadvantaged western cluster of suburbs lost $55 million last year on poker machines; the more affluent eastern cluster lost $18 million.

The study found the number of pokie venues and machines in the west outweighed those in the east eight to three.
 

NoobPie

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Of Hawthorn's $70 mill in revenue, $20 mill is from pokies - the largest percentage of any club.

Over half of that, and the biggest single take from any venue in the AFL, is from a facility on the border of City of Melton and City of Brimbank, two of the most disadvantaged areas in Melbourne.

As the Australian Centre for Gambling Research notes, the adult residents of Sunshine average losses of $1,400 per annum, compared to the residents of Box Hill, in Hawthorn's backyard, who only lose $400 per annum on pokies.

As a percentage of disposable income, that significant gap in annual losses becomes an abyss.

Hawthorn has effectively hit the top of the pops in annual revenue by preying on the most disadvantaged and poorest people of Melbourne.

All of this helps to entrench disadvantage in Melbourne's poorer suburbs.

As the Australian Centre for Gambling Research goes on to say:

In total, the more disadvantaged western cluster of suburbs lost $55 million last year on poker machines; the more affluent eastern cluster lost $18 million.

The study found the number of pokie venues and machines in the west outweighed those in the east eight to three.

#familyclub
 
Of Hawthorn's $70 mill in revenue, $20 mill is from pokies - the largest percentage of any club.

Over half of that, and the biggest single take from any venue in the AFL, is from a facility on the border of City of Melton and City of Brimbank, two of the most disadvantaged areas in Melbourne.

As the Australian Centre for Gambling Research notes, the adult residents of Sunshine average losses of $1,400 per annum, compared to the residents of Box Hill, in Hawthorn's backyard, who only lose $400 per annum on pokies.

As a percentage of disposable income, that significant gap in annual losses becomes an abyss.

Hawthorn has effectively hit the top of the pops in annual revenue by preying on the most disadvantaged and poorest people of Melbourne.

All of this helps to entrench disadvantage in Melbourne's poorer suburbs.

As the Australian Centre for Gambling Research goes on to say:

In total, the more disadvantaged western cluster of suburbs lost $55 million last year on poker machines; the more affluent eastern cluster lost $18 million.

The study found the number of pokie venues and machines in the west outweighed those in the east eight to three.
not comparing apples to apples are they picking so called disadvantaged suburbs to compare to affluent suburbs

if you were paying attention you'd also note that the other half the the Hawks revenue came from the eastern suburbs venue

I also notice you don't mind the Pies being nearby in the West, or the bombers being in Melton or the Blues and Cats being in Altona/Point Cook, just those big bad Hawks
 

DemonTim

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not comparing apples to apples are they picking so called disadvantaged suburbs to compare to affluent suburbs

if you were paying attention you'd also note that the other half the the Hawks revenue came from the eastern suburbs venue

I also notice you don't mind the Pies being nearby in the West, or the bombers being in Melton or the Blues and Cats being in Altona/Point Cook, just those big bad Hawks
Please don't :( the last thread was locked when people tried to reason with IT
 
Mar 17, 2009
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Soft drink and fast food sponsorships and selling alcohol are far bigger moral issues.

Pubs have RSA guidelines. People can only spend so much on fried food each day, ie you can only eat so much.
Even a few Pokie sessions can lead to large lossses that affect peoples lives & their families far more permanently than beers & fried foods.
 
May 13, 2012
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not comparing apples to apples are they picking so called disadvantaged suburbs to compare to affluent suburbs

if you were paying attention you'd also note that the other half the the Hawks revenue came from the eastern suburbs venue

I also notice you don't mind the Pies being nearby in the West, or the bombers being in Melton or the Blues and Cats being in Altona/Point Cook, just those big bad Hawks

1. Of course they are picking disadvantaged suburbs, to underscore the fact that residents from these disadvantaged suburbs lose more on pokies in absolute terms (never mind as a percentage of disposable income) than the residents of more affluent suburbs.

2. The largest earning venue, of all the AFL clubs, is the one on the border of City of Melton and City of Brimbank, two of the most disadvantaged areas in Melbourne. That's Hawthorn's, and that has helped them to the top of the pops in annual revenue. The club from affluent Eastern suburbs has increased its annual revenue by fleecing the most disadvantaged people in Melbourne, from a community that is at the polar extreme of what Hawthorn represents.

3. I find it astonishing that both the Australian Centre of Gambling Research, and this out-of-towner, has no problem with what is intended by a reference to the disadvantaged Western suburbs on the one hand and the affluent Eastern suburbs on the other (including Hawthorn and nearby leafy suburbs, stretching due East as far as the eye can see). Why is is that the posters who live in Melbourne, on this board have such difficulty?
 
May 13, 2012
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Soft drink and fast food sponsorships and selling alcohol are far bigger moral issues.
I would understand that people might wish to put these forward as important social issues, but it's probably a matter of opinion as to which issues are more pressing.

As it happens, the unfortunate truth is that people from disadvantaged suburbs are more likely to spend more on all these sorts of vices than people from affluent suburbs.

However, we can see in the Hawthorn example, where $20+ million is being ripped out of less affluent suburbs, from people who have a relatively low disposable income, they are helping to entrench poverty in poorer suburbs far more than they would be achieving that outcome by selling alcohol or by encouraging the consumption of junk food.
 
Jul 2, 2010
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Of Hawthorn's $70 mill in revenue, $20 mill is from pokies - the largest percentage of any club.

Carltons % is higher. Of Carltons $54 million in revenue in 2015, 18 million was pokies - 33%. On the same year of Hawthorns $70 million in revnue, $18 million was pokie venue related - 25%.

Of note - and something you ignore is that Hawthorn losses at West Water are just $400,000 more than at Waverly Gardens. Given Hawthorns 73% ownership of the facility, technically they are gaining more out of Waverly Gardens.

Also interesting to note theres no great difference between Carltons eastern and western facilities in total pokies intake.
 
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