Club revenue and pokies

[bloodspirit]

According to this article by Caroline Wilson - AFL to implement responsible gambling policy before 2017 season of the 10 Victorian AFL Clubs, only North Melbourne is poker machine free. Of the 9 that are not pokie-free, Hawthorn "reaps the biggest profits" from poker machines.

Thinking about it, I'm suspecting (and hoping) that the Swans are another team that does not derive revenue from poker machines. Can anyone confirm? I don't have a copy, but would this info be in the annual report?

[R-1]

Here you go



A lot more info here:

How much money does your club make? | Hurling People Now

Brisbane and Port Adelaide also have pokies. Brisbane's are industrial scale, Port's seem to be much smaller.

[bloodspirit]

Nice one R-1! Great post. Thanks.

So Wet Toast, Freo, Norf, Crows, us and the newbies get by without pokies. But for several clubs it's a big part of the bottom line. At least we 7 clubs are showing it can be done. Albeit 4 of the 6 clubs with lowest revenue are pokie free. It would be great to rid society of the blight of industrial scale gambling (not just pokies - the online betting is awful too - and an obnoxious intrusion on just watching footy these days).

Interesting also to see that WC, Adelaide and Freo all get more $ out of tickets than the Hawks.

[R-1]

That's likely to be the low revenue Launceston games.

[mattybloods]

Lucky Brisbane have their pokies!

[S.S. Bleeder]

Great to see that we don't need them. Those who do have sold their souls. I have no respect for anyone that makes money out of the misery of others. How this complies with the AFLs policy on integrity I'll never know.

[barry]

AFL...integrity?. Lol.

The AFL has no integrity.

[crackedactor]

Agree 100% Barry, the moral integrity of the AFL is that of a gutter rat!

[Legs Akimbo]

I'm reading a book at the moment called 'Addicted by Design: machine gambling in Las Vegas'. Eye opening. I put this up with selling tobacco. Pure Evil.

[Mug Punter]

Here you go



A lot more info here:

How much money does your club make? | Hurling People Now

Brisbane and Port Adelaide also have pokies. Brisbane's are industrial scale, Port's seem to be much smaller.

This is a truly disgusting graph and for the life of me I cannot see why this doesn't get more press. The fact that the Melbourne clubs generate approx. $90M a year from the human misery of poker machine addiction, because let there be no mistaking the fact that the vast majority of that money comes from problem gamblers.

And any talk of the AFL implementing a "responsible gambling policy" should be treated with the contempt it deserves, their levels of spin under Gill the Dill knows no limits.

There's not much that could ever make me consider quitting on the Swans and AFL but the only thing that would make me seriously consider my commitment would be if we succumb to the filthy lucre of the gaming dollar. I know that the gamblers would just go down the road and I know there is an issue of personal responsibility but it is the industry of parasites and bloodsuckers that prey on the weak and vulnerable.

If we stoop to the gutter and buy poker machine licences I think it will be curtains for me as a Swans fan.

At the very least I'll be protesting from the rafters and somehow I don't believe I'll be the only one.

And it makes me sick that the so-called "family club" destroys families to the tune of almost $20m a year, that their @@@@ like supporters have their STs subsidised to the tune of about $100 a pop (oh how they trumpet their cheap family friendly prices) by some poor bugger with an illness

[dejavoodoo44]

I'm reading a book at the moment called 'Addicted by Design: machine gambling in Las Vegas'. Eye opening. I put this up with selling tobacco. Pure Evil.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I googled a few reviews and ordered the book.

[Aprilbr]

Club revenue and pokies

While I totally concur with the above assessment of the evil of pokies I would like to add another element on them. This is essentially the revenue versus profit argument. When one considers the above graph it would seem that the Swans are a middling club when it comes to financial performance. This in fact is not correct because while some clubs earn substantial revenue from this source it is also a relatively low margin business. This is because a high volume of revenue is returned to punters, the govt takes a cut and there are significant fixed costs in running a pokies venue I.e. Cost of leasing machines and the venue. These costs are not shown in the above table.

The upshot is that while some Clubs like Hawthorn are probably doing very nicely given their high revenues in the area others like Port, Adelaide, Rich, Dogs and the Saints are probably not making much out of it at all after extracting these costs. So our financial performance overall is probably in that group below the Big 4 of Pies, Hawks, WCE and Essendon. A long way from the bad old days of the early 1990s when we would have been at the very right end of any financial tables.


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[bloodspirit]

Great point, Aprilbr - and all the more reason for the clubs not to do it! A lot of harm done for limited returns.

(Although surely the money that is returned to the punters is counted in the revenue?)

[Dosser]

Agree 100% Barry, the moral integrity of the AFL is that of a gutter rat!

For what it is worth, I have a number of contacts within player welfare circles in Melbourne, and one interesting stat I have heard is that 28 betting agencies have been "licenced" by the AFL. In addition to that, the AFL Players Association has been trying to implement a gambling awareness and help program to be implemented at each club, but they are faced with a massive roadblock to this. This roadblock is none other than the AFL itself, and as of the time of writing this, this program is ready to go, but has been stopped in its tracks. Moral integrity? Dont make me laugh...

[bloodspirit]

*not* counted in the revenue, I meant to say.