A 10-year study found that Returned Services League (RSL) clubs in Victoria return only a small fraction of their gambling revenue to the community.
The clubs are licensed to operate pokie machines (also called poker machines, slot machines, or fruit machines) and, from 2009 to 2019, made revenues of $2.097 billion (US$1.32 billion) from gamblers.
Of the nearly 300 RSLs in Victoria, over 50 are licensed for poker machines. If they donate a minimum of 8.3 percent of gambling revenue to “community contributions,” they become eligible for a tax cut. But they can include their own expenses—including wages and venue maintenance—in that total.
The RSL was established in 1916, and its website states that it exists “for the principal purpose of promoting the interests and welfare of current and former serving members of the Australian Defence Force and their dependents.”
More Spent on Operating Costs Than Donated
In total, the RSL clubs spent 12 times more on business expenses than support programmes.“Contributions for addressing gambling-related harm represented less than 0.002 percent of recorded claims,” the study found.
Clubs claim to have made $579.5 million in community contributions between 2009 and 2019, representing 27.6 percent of the losses incurred by gamblers.
But the greatest proportion of those contributions (79 percent) were business operating expenses, compared to donations, sponsorships, or other types of support to veterans or the wider community, which accounted for $120.6 million, or 21 percent of the total.
They concluded that “such schemes represent an excessively inefficient approach to funding community initiatives and causes.”
They recommend lawmakers review tax concessions, limit “unwarranted expenditure claims,” and improve transparency and scrutiny, though they note that the Victorian scheme has “a level of transparency unmatched in other Australian state community contribution schemes.”
“Community benefit scheme arrangements function as justification or legitimation for gambling’s ongoing and ubiquitous presence,” they said.
“They provide a counter to perceptions of significant harm visited on communities by widespread gambling opportunities.”
If the schemes don’t function as they’re supposed to, then “This creates a predicament that may cause damage to [the RSL’s] reputation and ethical standing,” they warn.
Victoria operates about 16 percent of Australia’s pokies, behind New South Wales (48 percent) and Queensland (24 percent). In Victoria, a licensed club cannot have more than 105 machines on its premises.
By international standards, gaming machine density—a measure of the machines’ saturation within the adult population—is extremely high in Australia, the report says.
