Australian football league clubs and teams benefit greatly from the profits of poker machines. Much of their funding is derived from the wagers that punters across the country spend on pokies. Due to the distribution of poker machines and current gaming tax laws, some clubs receive more funding than others – and a newly proposed legislation could change everything.
The Western Bulldogs have suffered for quite some time due to a lack of funding for the team and its players. To help other teams that are in the same position, the group has recently suggested a new tax scheme for pokies this week.
“The Western Bulldogs believe that a system in which club poker machine profits over a certain proportion of gross club revenue were contributed to a common pool for equitable distribution, would be a preferable model,” reads the club’s submission.
This would mean even out funding among all AFL clubs. The profits of all poker machines, regardless of which club owns them, would be put into pool and distributed evenly among teams. As such, teams with fewer pokies would have a fighting chance at competing and teams with more pokies would not have such an advantage.
“Dependency on poker-machine revenue in AFL clubs, and the growing revenue differentials between larger and smaller Victorian franchises, have been to the detriment of the competition”.
It is hard to deny the fact that funding contributes greatly to a team’s success. While talent and teamwork are the basis of success in a season, funding helps teams receive more training from better programs, which certainly improves their game.
Other cash-strapped clubs are certainly supportive of the change, but the more financially-success clubs are likely to resist. Since they own and operate more pokies, they believe that they should have access to more funding from the local gambling industry. As such, the debate over the Bulldogs’ submission is going to be a heated one with plenty of opinions from across the league.
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