Wheres ol dumb dumbThe_Wookie wrote:http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/afl-cl ... 7102811873
VICTORIAN AFL clubs creamed more than $88 million from pokies punters in the last financial year, with Hawthorn and Carlton leading the way.
Gaming revenue has become such a factor in football that AFL boss Gillon McLachlan recently cited it as one of four chief reasons why the league had introduced equalisation measures.
The 19 gaming venues operated by the AFL clubs generated $88.7m in net gaming revenue, according figures published by the industry regulator.
North Melbourne is the only Victorian AFL club not to have poker machines.
Net gaming revenue is what the machines take after winnings. The figures do not represent the profits made by clubs.
Hawthorn’s club Vegas at Waverley Gardens generated almost $11m while its 73 per cent interest in the West Waters Hotel brought in a further $7.6m.
Carlton’s four pokies clubs took $17.5m, Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation figures show.
Collingwood and Essendon also generated more than $10m in the year to the end of June.
Speaking at a recent business event, McLachlan named gaming revenue as one of the factors that prompted the league’s recent competitive balance push.
“Equalisation is characterised as taking from the rich and giving to the poor — but what it is actually for is to compensate the smaller clubs for the structural inequities they have in their business,” McLachlan said.
“They are their stadium deals — some have got good ones, some have got bad ones; the size of their supporter base, and that is an historical thing; the fixture which has some indirect structural stuff in their like Anzac Day and others; and the fourth one is gaming, where some clubs — you take a Hawthorn who make about a $4 million net profit out of their gaming business — and in Western Australia, you can’t own machines.”
In 2012, then AFL boss Andrew Demetriou said clubs had shown interest in getting out of pokies, but since then the number of machines run by AFL clubs has grown.
Next year, the Western Bulldogs will more than double their stake in pokies, when 70 machines go on line at the club’s long-awaited Edgewater development in Maribyrnong.
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Victorian AFL clubs and their pokie takes in 2013-14
CARL $17.5m (4 pokie clubs)
COLL $12.7m (3)
ESS $11.9m (2)
GEEL $8m (2)
HAW $18.6m (2)
MEL $9.4m (2)
NM — Nil
RICH $4.1m (1)
STK $2.2m (1)
WB $4.3m (2)
TOTAL = 19 pokie clubs — $88.7m
* SOURCE: Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation
** Net gaming revenue is the total amount lost by players in the 2013/14 financial year
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