WHEN it comes to gambling Brimbank does it BIG – more than $1 billion down the coin slot and through the cash feeder since pokies were introduced 14 years ago.
To be exact, that’s $1,155,592,879 from 1992 to last month, according to figures from the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation.
Brimbank reached the dubious milestone last year.
This money could have been spent in Brimbank shops, restaurants, sporting clubs and other local businesses – reviving ailing shopping centres and commercial strips.
Instead, it is shared between government, 15 various clubs and hotels, and gambling giants Tattersalls and Tabcorp.
Of course, the Brimbank community does get some back – $1.3 million in the last financial year from the Community Support Fund, according to the State Government, and $455,000, according to the Brimbank City Council.
The area has received another $15 million in grants from the Department of Victorian Communities since 1999.
But in the last financial year Brimbank contributed $115 million in pokies expenditure and since 1999 more than $900 million.
That equates to a paltry 1.5 per cent return.
The startling statistics come as Brimbank Council approved a new policy on gambling.
The council, in endorsing its long-awaited gambling plan, said it wanted to help problem gamblers but did not want to take away gaming as “entertainment” for those who could handle it.
The policy and action plan calls for a capping of poker machine number at today’s levels (953) and a cut in machines to bring numbers in line with other parts of Melbourne.
But the council stopped short of setting a reduction target, branding it a populist and simplistic ploy by anti-gambling activists.
Greens councillor Miles Dymott’s proposal to remove 40 per cent of poker machines in the municipality was rejected.
Brimbank mayor Natalie Suleyman said the policy was “measured, balanced and responsible”.
“It recognises the harm done by problem gambling and the need to do more to minimise that harm,” Cr Suleyman said.
“But it also recognises that clubs and hotels with electronic gaming machines do generate government revenue for good purposes, some of which flows back to local community.
“It avoids populist temptation to promise dramatic cuts in the number of electronic gaming machines and, inevitably, the number of venues,” Cr Suleyman said.
But the amount of money lost to pokies in Brimbank is the second highest in Victoria – surpassing bigger municipalities such as Geelong and Casey.
The $115 million punters lost in the city in the past financial year is the highest loss since the introduction of machines.
Already $20 million has been lost two months into this financial year.
Cr Dymott said the council needed to set a goal of reducing the number of poker machines.
He said the argument that clubs and hotels would suffer an economic downturn without poker machines cut both ways.
“I think about all the money that is spent on poker machines that could be spent in (Brimbank) businesses,” Cr Dymott said.
