Pokies too pricey to play

The Mullumbimby Rugby Leagues Club, which is the home of the Mullumbimby Giants, doesn’t make enough money from poker machines to warrant upgrading them under the proposed planned pokies reform.

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MULLUMBIMBY Rugby League Club has a simple solution to the costs attached to planned gaming machine reforms.

It'll just get rid of them.

“We're not like other clubs,” leagues club president Adam McKenzie said. Not like the big ones anyway.

The region's biggest clubs – Ballina RSL Club, Casino RSM and the Lismore Workers Club – have all said they rely heavily on poker machine revenue to bolster their income, which ultimately gets pumped back into the community either through direct donations or investment in services. However, the tiny Mullumbimby Leagues Club – with only a few hundred members, one full-time employee and a grand total of 10 aging poker machines – made so little money that the loss of gaming revenue would mean little to it.

According to Gold Coast Federal Liberal MP Steven Ciobo, who has assembled a table looking at the potential impact of Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie's proposed pre-commitment scheme, Mullumbimby would have to find $150,000 to upgrade or replace its 10 pokies and would then lose more than $5500 a year because of the changes.

The pre-commitment scheme would require punters to register and set a betting limit before using a poker machine.

Mr McKenzie was unsure whether the loss of the pokies, which he said were rarely played anyway, would be that dire.

“Our profit last month was $300,” he said.

On the other hand, the $150,000 upgrade bill, which Mr Ciobo bases on the assumption that clubs would have to replace about half their machines and upgrade the rest, would make a big difference.

Mr McKenzie said the solution would be to sell the licences for the machines which would still be worth a bit. The value of the machines was another matter.

“We wouldn't be able to afford to upgrade them,” he said.

“Our machines are all 15 to 20 years old. They're not current enough to even upgrade them.”

Mr Ciobo said Murwillumbah Leagues Club would lose nearly $24,000 a year in income.

Cudgen would have to fork out more than half a million dollars for the change-over and then lose more than $336,000 a year, while the giant Seagulls Club at Tweed Heads would have to cough up more than $4.5 million to change its machines and then lose more than $5.8 million a year in revenue.