Woolies ‘leading pack on pokies’

BLAIR SPEEDY
November 22, 2012
The Australian

WOOLWORTHS, the country’s biggest individual poker-machine operator, says it is doing more to combat problem gambling than anyone else in the industry, including rolling out precommitment technology two years earlier than required by law.

But the company’s chief executive, Grant O’Brien, has drawn the line at $1 maximum bets.

Its majority-owned ALH pubs business operates more than 11,000 pokies across 323 hotels, and has been targeted by social activists GetUp, who want to use an extraordinary general meeting today to ensure gamblers at an ALH venue can lose no more than $1 every time they press a button.

Speaking exclusively to The Australian, Mr O’Brien said the proposal would hurt Woolies but do nothing to help the people it was trying to protect.

“What the activists are proposing would apply only to Woolworths,” he said.

“We’ve got about 6 per cent of the country’s poker machines — that’s about 11,000 — the RSL in NSW have got more than twice that number in NSW alone.

“So is putting a measure like this on a single player going to have any effect or is it just going to mean people leave our hotels and go to an equally accessible hotel nearby?”

Mr O’Brien said Woolies had gone above and beyond what was required by law to prevent problem gambling. It had trialled precommitment systems on poker machines — where gamblers can nominate the amount they are prepared to gamble — since 2008, and planned to have all its machines operating on a precommitment basis by 2014.

It also trained staff and venue managers in responsible gaming, operated self-exclusion programs for problem gamblers, and consulted with Gamblers’ Helpline and the Salvation Army.

“We recognise that problem gambling is a serious issue and we treat it as such, and you can tell that by the work we’ve done,” Mr O’Brien said.

Under legislation expected to pass through the federal parliament early next year, new poker machines will be required to support precommitment technology by 2014, with the machines being connected to a statewide system by the end of 2016.

Mr O’Brien said he supported the move, adding that any change to the rules needed to be applied across the industry in order to combat problem gambling.

“The answer is one that has the best chance of working, and that requires the buy-in of both federal and state governments, because they’re both players in this; it needs support from the pubs and clubs industry and support from the wider community,” he said.

The Woolworths board will today square off against GetUp at a meeting in Adelaide to vote on resolutions that would force Woolies not only to impose $1 bet limits and cap machine revenues at $120 per hour, but also restrict venue opening times to 18 hours a day.

The EGM has been called by a group of 210 GetUp members who own shares in Woolworths, using a provision of the Corporations Act that allows special resolutions to be put to all shareholders if at least 100 of them back the request.

The resolution is expected to fail, with proxy advisers tipping at least 90 per cent of shareholders to vote against its adoption.