PHaC and Crowe want to "Blow up the Pokies"

[_Johnsy]

titanium has pokies...its main focus is a cocktail bar and it attracts alot of locals

apologies, my bad. Never been there I just have not seen any pics with pokies in the shot.:sarcasm:

 

[_Johnsy]

Wow it's an impressive move if it happens. I'd like to see Dennis Fitzgerald do something constructive like this instead of calling our next opponents chokers. I think SS just became my 2nd fav team.

FMD you lot are a petty bunch.

 

[RabbitohHighlightMaker]

Holmes à Court clarifies position on no pokies in Redfern

on SSFCTV Peter Holmes à Court clarifies his position on no pokies in the new Redfern Leagues club.

to view this statement from Peter, go to www.souths.com.au and click on the picture of Holmes à Court or click on the link to SSFCTV.

 

[manlyone]

You can always make the argument these people will just go elsewhere ..... but
1. at least Crowe et al will know the money is not going into their pockets.
2. how good is it to hear about the charity side / promotion of aboriginal kids thingo Souths have started and
3. you can see the argument that given point 2 it would be hypocritical to fund the footy team on the back of pokies

 

[Dave Q]

As a club member I fully endorse the move.

Those seeking pokie entertainment can go elsewhere, its not as if they are hard to find.

I am confident that Souths management are skilled enough to find recurrent revenue from alternate funding sources such as real estate, retail and the services sector.

Its a vastly under-exploited brand name as it is.

As for gambling, I dont think we set enough constraints on it.

I wouldnt ban it altogether especially not at once. I'd phase it out of mainstream life gradually like they are doing with cigarette smoking.

Its not impossible to introduce a limit of $30 per day gambling at any club. You could introduce a smart card that gamblers would have to carry with them in order to gamble and when they reach the limit for that day, the machines just wont work for them. Other than limits, you could introduce time restraints.

As a state-wide gesture, people will try to say that the government would lose a lot of revenue if we got rid of gambling etc.

But the government are very creative about finding other sources of funding, they (we) could cope.

I dont think people shouldnt be allowed to gamble at all, only that it be tempered and controlled.

Australia is in the midst of social change. One day clubs and pubs as we know them, will vanish.

Which is not to say that they dont do a lot of good things.

 

[Simo]

To sum it up, he said he doesnt pass judgemnt on others, souths junrs does a lot for the community but he doesnt believe redfern needs pokies as its bad for the community and he reckons he can make a bigger profit without them due to events being held there.

Thats his few minutes of jibberish in a nutshell.

 

[smeghead]

But where would Asian gangsters launder their money if Star City had limits like that??

 

[SSFC Hitman]

As a Souths fan whilst I would like to see it work I'm not sure it will and we don't know if the Leagues club board will even pass it yet.

I mean PHAC is a very very smart man and him and Crowe know how to use the media to their advantage...I meanthey probably know that the League's club won't approve so they just say to the media, "Oh look let's get rid of pokies as it will help the community et etc" and even if it doesn't work out people will view them as the "good guys" because they TRIED until the "bad guys" of the leagues club board refuted them. And at the end of the day they don't lose a cent and still get good publicity for not doing anything really. But hey that could be me being sceptical.

BUT even if it were to be approved I can see WHY PHAC wants this. Quite simply the types os people that predominatntley play the pokies in that area are on welfare and unemloyed and quite simply give the place a bad name. Get rid of them and you get rid of the bad name they bring to the club.

 

[Dave Q]

As a Souths fan whilst I would like to see it work I'm not sure it will and we don't know if the Leagues club board will even pass it yet.

I mean PHAC is a very very smart man and him and Crowe know how to use the media to their advantage...I meanthey probably know that the League's club won't approve so they just say to the media, "Oh look let's get rid of pokies as it will help the community et etc" and even if it doesn't work out people will view them as the "good guys" because they TRIED until the "bad guys" of the leagues club board refuted them. And at the end of the day they don't lose a cent and still get good publicity for not doing anything really. But hey that could be me being sceptical.

BUT even if it were to be approved I can see WHY PHAC wants this. Quite simply the types os people that predominatntley play the pokies in that area are on welfare and unemloyed and quite simply give the place a bad name. Get rid of them and you get rid of the bad name they bring to the club.

Good points.

On the last I must take issue.

One unemployed bastard saved my life one day.

True story.

 

[Dave Q]

But where would Asian gangsters launder their money if Star City had limits like that??

wd smiley!

Just on that topic, I think the Panthers Club are a few passes ahead of the game when it comes to monitoring their gamblers.

$30 was a bit mean, I'll up it to $35 over 5 hours and offer 20c per spin maximum.

3 lama heads in a row can win you a vegetable latte.

 

[sherrinator]

If RL clubs didn't have pokies, they would be losing money. The NRL teams are there to bring the gamblers in.

 

[_Johnsy]

If RL clubs didn't have pokies, they would be losing money. The NRL teams are there to bring the gamblers in.

Are you currently doing a phd in stupidity ? This could be the most ridiculous comment ever!!!

 

[rabbitville]

well off inner city yuppies because that is who will be able to afford to eat there.

Easts leagues would be worried then :lol:

 

[LeagueNut]

Probably a silly question, but are there any League clubs in Australia that don't rely on pokies for a substantial income??

The Warriors have never had a Leagues Club, and as far as I know don't rely on gaming money at all.

So obviously Souths are simply following our example. ;-)

 

[Misty Bee]

Ever since the pokies tax came in, this has been on the cards. Saints Leagues recently reduced the footy club grant by $2 million. When the club cull of the late 90's was on, Souths Juniors declined to give a chunk of their poker machine money to the Bunnies. That's where a lot of their problems stemmed from with Murdoch.

Souths might be formulating the blueprint for the modern club. Like Wests in the 1950's, this could herald a new era in RL funding.

One nagging problem, though. PHac and Crowe have deep pockets with which to help the club out of financial holes.

 

[Dave Q]

Ever since the pokies tax came in, this has been on the cards. Saints Leagues recently reduced the footy club grant by $2 million. When the club cull of the late 90's was on, Souths Juniors declined to give a chunk of their poker machine money to the Bunnies. That's where a lot of their problems stemmed from with Murdoch.

Souths might be formulating the blueprint for the modern club. Like Wests in the 1950's, this could herald a new era in RL funding.

One nagging problem, though. PHac and Crowe have deep pockets with which to help the club out of financial holes.[/quote]

Richo has been straightforward, the modern day football club needs approx $16,000,000 a year.

The idea is to get this amount plus some more to invest for the harder times.

Rusty would need to make at least 3 movies a year to sustain the club on his ownsome.

 

[yakstorm]

Souths Leagues is possibly the easiest Leagues club affiliated with a NRL team to remove the pokies from simply for the fact, the machines at the club have a very low patronage.

As the SMH version of the article states:

However board chairman Bill Alexiou-Hucker said, without seeing the proposal, he believed the club would go broke within 12 months without the $150,000 per month from its 60 pokies.

The club currently only earns $1.8 million from pokies. Minus taxes, servicing, security plus any other costs they are possibly returning less than a million a year from the things.

Now I'm not at all saying that replacing that million worth of revenue is easy, but it certainly is a lot more realistic to remove the pokie dependency for Souths than say Parramatta, Easts, Canterbury or Penrith who earn huge multi-million dollar figures from their machines.

Its good to see PHaC and Rusty have seen this and realise not only is their a huge amount of goodwill they can earn from taking a 'no-pokie' approach, but that it isn't fiscal suicide what they are doing.

 

[Tom Shines]

Ever since the pokies tax came in, this has been on the cards.

For clubs (any club) to complain about the increase in pokie tax is pretty poor. The things are a menace to society and the clubs should be fortunate that they had the machines to build monolithic clubs.

And for those that were saying should the TAB be banned, 85% of problem gamblers attribute machines to their problem, making them by far the biggest issue. And besides, for a regular, low income gambler it is a lot quicker to plough through money than on the TAB.

 

[Tommy Smith]

I havent read everyone post so i dont know if this has already been mentioned but...

...all it means is that the people who blow their welfare money on the pokies will go somewhere else. I'd imagine competitiors in the area would be absolutely ecstatic.

 

[Carlito]

Crowe and PhaC should be applauded if they are serious about this.

Having said that I am fairly certain the clubs will never let this type of thing happen.

I'm a Roosters fan btw.