A recent report has revealed that Woolworths has been dishonest about its reasons for staying in the local gambling market. While shareholders have requested that the company pull out of the poker machine industry, the company claimed that it could not do so without losing its liquor licenses – but this has been proven false.
After some research, shareholders discovered that this is not the case at all. In fact, the only area in Australia which requires operators to have a hotel license in order to hold a liquor license is Queensland. Shareholders are now incredibly suspicious over Woolworth’s practices and stance on the issue of gambling.
It seems that Woolworth’s took the easy way out, when it came to explaining to its shareholders why it could not afford to pull out of the gambling market. Rather than it being an issue of losing its liquor licenses, the company is simply concerned with losing out on valuable gambling revenue.
Now that shareholders have discovered that this is the case, will they continue to push for Woolworth’s withdrawal from the gambling market. If so, it could mean the loss of one of the biggest pokie machine operators in Australia.