MPs invited to view pokies success

Will Schroeder in the gaming room of the Yaralla Sports Club.

MEMBER for Flynn Ken O’Dowd is keen to show independent parliamentarians Andrew Wilkie and Nick Xenephon what Gladstone has already done to address their concerns about Poker Machines.

Mr O’Dowd said as Tasmanian MP Wilkie’s parliamentary office was 10 metres away from his own, he paid him a visit and invited him to visit Yaralla Sports Club to prove that drastic restrictions on poker machines were not necessary.

“I urged him to come to see that we have already introduced limits on poker machines similar to those he has been suggesting to the Gillard government since being elected,” he said.

Mr O’Dowd said he expected to also invite Senator Nick Xenephon to visit clubs in Gladstone, including the Calliope Golf and Bowls Club, of which he has been president of the past 25 years.

Both Mr Wilkie and Senator Xenephon have expressed concern over the harm poker machines were coausing throughout Australia.

The Observer’s Simon Crase, in last week’s Behind the News Page in The Advocate, said that Yaralla Sports Club introduced a voluntary system of poker machine reforms 18 months ago – the first club in Australia to implement bet limits through the use of card technology.

And since the club introduced Simplay, other clubs throughout Queensland have followed suit. The system allows members to set gaming limits if they feel they have a problem with gambling.

The club’s membership cards are used to administer the system. Credits are transferred via this cards.

Although notes can also be insterted into the machines, the payouts are distributed on membership cards.

Mr O’Dowd said he did not believe there was a big gambling problem in Gladstone.

He said the Calliope Golf and Bowls Club, which has 12 poker machines, earns about $100,000 from its machines each year which are used to subsidise the wages of the club's three ground staff.

“A change to the system can send many smaller clubs such as our golf and bowls club down the chute,” Mr O'Dowd said.

“Ironically, the reforms will not affect the casinos, which have the potential to cause much more damage than our clubs ever will.”

Yaralla Sports Club’s general manager, Will Schroeder, said he had known of Mr O’Dowd’s intention to invite Mr Wilkie and Senator Xenophon to the Club.

“I would be happy to show them around the Club,” he said.

Mr Schroeder said there would be some costs involved to install the Simpay system if the clubs did not have the necessary software and hardware. But he did not think that these would be prohibitive.