Labour MP Jenny Macklin states that Andrew Wilkie’s gambling reform will not hurt clubs as much as operators would have us believe. Since Wilkie announced his plans to enact poker machine reform, clubs across the country have claimed that over 30% of profits would be lost, having dire effects on the local economy.
Macklin believes that these claims are a bit exaggerated, stating that gaming clubs across the country will be able to recover from poker machine reform. While it is inevitable that profits will be lost and revenue will decline, pokie reform is not the be all to end all for clubs across the country.
Quoting a recent report by Clubs Queensland, Macklin states that clubs will continue to thrive even after gambling reform is passed as a law. Gambling activity will continue to take place, but on a lesser scale. She believes that clubs will be able to deal with these changes and compensate for lost revenue in other ways.
Some clubs have already started to prepare for the reform. Rooty Hill, for example, announced recently that it is working on becoming less reliant on poker machine revenue. There are plenty of other opportunities out there for clubs to generate revenue, and politicians believe that club owners and operators should take advantage of them.
