COMMUNITY donations by clubs raking in millions of dollars from poker machines are “minuscule” compared to the profits the machines deliver, groundbreaking new research shows.
The Monash University study, the first of its kind, revealed Bill Shorten’s federal seat of Maribyrnong, which covers much of Brimbank, topped the state in terms of proportion of median income lost by each user.
The seat’s estimated 20,519 pokies users (21 per cent of the population) had estimated losses of $6699 each – a quarter of the area’s median income per adult.
Only Blaxland in Sydney’s western suburbs had a higher loss rate at 34 per cent of median income.
Of the $137.5 million lost to pokies in Maribyrnong in 2010-11, $6.5 million was returned via community benefit claims – less than 5 per cent.
Report author Dr Charles Livingstone said money poured into poker machines was being diverted from more critical household spending.
“The community benefits claimed by poker machine operators do not offset the social and economic impact to any serious degree, if at all,” he said.
“The public health and community welfare implications of this are significant, not simply for current users, but for their family, children, neighbours, employers and the community generally.”
Dr Livingstone called claims of community benefits “a smokescreen” to enlist the support of sporting clubs and charities and deflect attention from the harm caused by poker machines.
Victorian gamblers lost $2.6 billion or $701 per adult in the 12 months to June last year.
Of this, clubs such as RSL and bowling clubs distributed $62.8 million to community and charitable groups – 2.4 per cent of losses.
The ‘Assessment of poker machine expenditure and community benefit claims’ report was commissioned by UnitingCare Australia.
National director Lin Hatfield Dodds said people living in disadvantaged areas were losing a much greater percentage of their income on poker machines compared to their more affluent neighbours.
“It’s clear from the research that poker machine owners are concentrating the machines in communities where people can least afford to lose large sums of money,” she said.
