Stressed out on Melbourne's outer fringe — the perfect demographic for a new pokies venue
Pokies clubs are targeting stressed and tired commuters living on Melbourne's ever-expanding urban fringe, according to experts.
Key points:
- Casey residents lost $80 million on 913 poker machines this year
- New venue at Clyde North would have another 100 gaming machines
- The City of Casey Council voted to reject the proposal before the council was sacked
The community with the second-worst rate of losses on poker machines in Victoria will get around 100 more gaming machines.
Plans for a new venue at Clyde North, a growing new suburb in the City of Casey, will go to the state gaming commission for consideration today.
"The growth of poker machine pubs and clubs in Melbourne, and in most other Australian cities, is in the outer suburbs because those populations are very attractive to pokie operators," said Charles Livingston of Monash University.
So far this year, punters in Casey, in Melbourne's south-east, have lost $80 million on the pokies, topped only by the City of Brimbank in Melbourne's west with losses of $83 million.
New venue 'bound to do well'
On the other end of the scale, losses in the City of Bayside, which takes in Brighton and Sandringham, totalled just $8.3 million.
People in Casey spend $362,000 per day on the pokies on 913 poker machines.
The new proposal, by Castello's Daisey's Hotel, would take that to over 1,000.
Dr Livingston, who has spent years studying the way people gamble, said Casey was a prime target for pokies operators.
"The demographic of people living in outer suburban areas is exactly the demographic that pokies operators want," he said.
"It's people who are stressed, who may have long commutes, which is adding to their stresses and strains.
"They have very little local amenity, so there's not much to do and a pokies pub pops up and it's bound to do well."
Tom Cummings, a former pokies addict who is a board member of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, lost $100,000 over three years during his 20s.
The Clyde North venue is just 4 kilometres from Mr Cummings' home.
"I would have been there like a shot, and I would have been there hours a day," he said.
He also lives walking distance from Berwick Springs Hotel, which is home to 104 machines.
"When I see an application like this, for 100 machines just down the road, I think, 'not again'," Mr Cummings said.
Families will be 'torn apart' by gambling harm
He said the growth corridor, where mortgage stress and other financial pressures are common, could not afford another gambling centre.
"We're going to see a massive upswing in the number of families torn apart by the harm that gambling can cause," Mr Cummings said.
The troubled Casey City Council voted to oppose the Clyde North plans just a month before it was dissolved and decision-making was handed over to an administrator.
Regardless, it is likely the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation will give the venue the go-ahead.
"In the case of the Castello's Clyde North Hotel application for approval of premises as suitable for gaming, the 60-day decision period ends on 7 April 2020," a spokesperson said.
Castello's was contacted for comment.
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