It is a common misconception that club owners always want to add new pokies to their venues – but this is not the case in the Australian Capital Territory. According to recent reports plenty of club owners would rather sell their poker machines. ACT politicians have released a discussion paper on a potential legislation that would allow pubs and clubs to sell their machines and trade their gaming licenses.
Currently, this is prohibited by the local government, but changing this law could greatly benefit many venues. In the Canberra Times, Barton’s Rugby Union Club is profiled. The venue hosts 15 poker machines, which are barely played by customers. The club generates most of its profits from food and drinks, and the pokies are simply wasting money at this point.
The owner of the club would be better off without the games, but there is no way to him to trade their licenses. "It costs as much to run and maintain them as the income into their club. This is an opportunity for them to relinquish or to move on those machines,'' says Gaming and Racing Minister Joy Burch. Clubs that wish to get rid of their machines are not able to sell them to other venues.
They would have to simply give them back to the government, and they would receive no money for them. The new law would make it so that these clubs could offload their pokies and reap some profit. This potential legislation would also benefit the community because it would allow clubs to shift their dependence on poker machines.
Many clubs have refused to take part in harm minimisation initiaitives because they rely heavily on poker machine income. If more clubs were able to offload their games and no longer need pokies to pay their gaming licenses, it is likely that they would depend more on other sources of revenue.
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