Renderings of proposed performance arts centre being built in Western Sydney, by Rooty Hill RSL, now known as West HQ The state’s most profitable poker machine clubs – such as Canterbury Leagues, the Mounties Club, Cabra-Vale Diggers, and Dooleys Catholic Club – continue to raise more than 85 per cent of revenue from gambling. Rooty Hill RSL Club Limited ABN 54 000 842 375 GENERAL (RDR) PURPOSE FINANCIAL REPORT. Poker machine licences and taxes (16,113,996) (16,323,568).

They’re NSW’s dirty dozen: 12 registered clubs that in any other country would be called casinos. Enormous entertainment complexes that between them operate close to seven thousand poker machines, make almost one billion dollars in gambling revenue every year… yet call themselves not-for-profit organisations and enjoy lucrative tax concessions from the state government. They bankroll campaigns to protect their gambling industry, they have the ear of the government and they claim that they’re leading the fight against problem gambling, even while their profits grow… just who are NSW’s dirty dozen?

1. Mt Pritchard & District Community Club (Trading as Mounties)
Poker machines: 603
Revenue (last financial year): $107,393,033

Welcome to Mounties

Mounties is the highest-earning poker machine club in the country. They’re also located in the Fairfield City Council area, which has the highest losses in NSW. A double distinction, if you will. Mounties boast of their 4 restaurants and 13 bars, not to mention the gym, the hairdresser or the child minding service… but they don’t say much about their annual 9 digit poker machine revenue.

2. Western Suburbs (Newcastle) Leagues Club
Poker machines: 556
Revenue (last financial year): $101,145,000

Wests in New Lambton is the other $100 million plus pokies club in NSW. Each of their 556 poker machines rakes in $182,000 a year, making them the most lucrative pokies in the state.

3. Bankstown Sports Club
Poker machines: 745
Revenue (last financial year): $86,683,187


4. Canterbury League Club
Poker machines: 695
Revenue (last financial year): $78,228,286

The recently-formed Canterbury-Bankstown City Council has the second highest losses on poker machines in NSW… and is home to the state’s 3rd and 4th highest earning poker machine clubs. Bankstown Sports Club has the distinction of having more poker machines (745) than any other club in the country, while Canterbury League Club is not far behind. Between them they pull in over $160 million in gaming revenue each year.

5. Dooleys Lidcombe Catholic Club
Poker machines: 450
Revenue (last financial year): $75,292,054

The first of two “Catholic” clubs in the Dirty Dozen, Dooleys actually changed their constitution in 2011 to allow them to get political and fight against poker machine reforms.

6. Cabra-Vale Ex-Active Servicemen’s Club
Poker machines: 450
Revenue (last financial year): $68,714,893

Cabra-Vale Diggers is the second Fairfield City Council club on our list. Nothing says “remember our Diggers” like hundreds of poker machines and sheer golden opulence.

7. Penrith Rugby League Club
Poker machines: 610
Revenue (last financial year): $66,754,000

Penrith Panthers is the flagship of the Panthers Group, which expanded to a dozen clubs on the back of poker machine revenue but has shrunk in recent years due to crippling debts and poor management. Their 600+ poker machines keeps this club afloat.

8. Mingara Recreation Club
Poker machines: 481
Revenue (last financial year): $64,382,922

Mingara was the trial site for the controversial “chaplains in clubs” scheme in 2012, which was proposed by Clubs NSW as an alternative to gambling reform. Today the club is the 8th highest earning pokies venue in NSW.

9. Rooty Hill RSL Club
Poker machines: 726
Revenue (last financial year): $55,617,583

Rooty Hill RSL

Poker

Rooty Hill RSL loves the spotlight. They ran an advertising campaign saying they were so big they needed their own postcode, and they regularly host “town hall-style forums” for our leaders during federal elections. They seem far more interested in their Novotel Hotel and their bowling alleys, paid for and subsidised by pokies revenue, than our returned servicemen and women.

10. Parramatta Leagues Club
Poker machines: 520
Revenue (last financial year): $54,177,399

Rooty Hill Rsl Poker Machines For Sale

Rooty Hill Rsl Poker Machines

Parramatta Leagues Club has seen its fair share of financial scandals over the years, culminating in the sacking of their board last year for misusing funds to make extra payments to Parramatta Eels players. Despite it all, their 520 pokies have kept them at number 10 in the state.

11. Liverpool Catholic Club
Poker machines: 435
Revenue (last financial year): $52,804,118

The second “Catholic” club on our list. Last year their community contributions were just 3% of their poker machine revenue. The other 97% probably went into their new hotel extension, or their ice skating rink, or maybe even their mini-golf course.

Rooty Hill Rsl Poker Machines Machine

12. Revesby Workers’ Club
Poker machines: 525
Revenue (last financial year): $51,561,890

Rooty Hill Rsl Poker Machines Free Play

It was a close call for number 12 in the Dirty Dozen, but Revesby Workers Club just edged out Wentworthville Leagues Club. Revesby Workers has slightly fewer poker machines than Wentworthville Leagues and slightly higher revenue as well, but the deciding factor was that Revesby Workers is in the Canterbury-Bankstown Council area, which (as was mentioned earlier) is the second-highest losing council area in NSW. Revesby’s contribution to that can’t be ignored.

Special Mention

Let’s not forget the clubs that are just outside the Dirty Dozen. Wentworthville Leagues Club, of course, has 541 machines and made $51,146,386 last year. There are three other clubs in the 500+ poker machines category: Western Suburbs League Club (Campbelltown) – 510 pokies; Commercial Club (Albury) – 623 pokies; and Twin Towns Services Club – 596 pokies. The Commercial and Twin Towns clubs deserve special mention for staying alive and continuing to make huge gambling profits even after the spread of poker machines in to Queensland and Victoria made their border-town status largely irrelevant.

Note: Data on gaming machine numbers is © State of New South Wales (Department of Justice) 2017.
For current information go to justice.nsw.gov.au.

Rooty Hill Rsl Poker Machines Online

POLITICIANS and newsreaders are being irresponsible by posing in front of poker machines during Prime Minister Julia Gillard's five-day visit to Rooty Hill in western Sydney, anti-gambling campaigners say.

The Nine Network broadcast its evening news bulletin with pokie lights flashing in the background at the Rooty Hill RSL on Monday.

Labor ministers Anthony Albanese and David Bradbury were interviewed by Sky News in front of gaming machines at the venue.

Monash University gambling expert Charles Livingstone has told AAP that shows 'how far we have to go' before people understand gambling addictions.

'Would either of those people conduct interviews or news programs in front of a bar full of people drinking too much or a room full of people smoking?' Dr Livingstone asked.

'It just demonstrates that politicians don't get it, these are dangerous goods.

'Seeing someone standing in front of a row of poker machines, (on television) in some cases could be enough to get people into difficulty,' he said.

Poker machines should not be shown on television when children are watching, he said.

Rooty Hill, known to some as the 'Vegas of the west', has more than 700 gaming machines.

Dr Livingstone said the fact the social fabric of western Sydney was wound up with poker machines was worrying.

'Those places make an awful lot of money out of people who can ill afford to lose it,' he said.

The Rooty Hill RSL Club is in the electorate of Chifley held by Labor backbencher Ed Husic.

NSW Office of Liquor and Gambling Regulation statistics in 2010-11 show people in Chifley lost $113 million on 1532 poker machines.

Each machine netted $73,000, with the losses equating to $1058 per adult in an electorate where the average person's income is $423 per week.

Anti-gambling campaigner independent senator Nick Xenophon said senior politicians appeared to be 'joined at the hip' to the poker machine industry.

'The irony is that people who are hurt most by poker machines are the battlers, the constituents who are supposed to be (Labor's) core concern,' he said.

Comment has been sought from the Nine Network and Sky News.

A spokesman for Mr Albanese said it was not the minister's choice of location but he was in the broadcaster's hands.

Originally published asMinisters slammed for posing with pokies