Quote:
Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes
Pokie machine licences are directly related to liquor licences.
Barry
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Totally wrong.
The only connection is that you need to have one of a couple of different types of Liquor License before you can apply for Gaming Machine Licenses. There are a whole different set of factors which I dont need to go into here which in fact determines how many Electronic Gaming Machines (EGM's) you can have on the floor under the Legislation.
To say that Woolworths and Coles own the majority of gaming machines in Australia is not getting things in perspective. There are about 197,000 EGM's in Australia, 97,000 of which are in NSW. Of the 97,000 EGM's in NSW, NSW Clubs account for over 70% of those machines. So NSW Clubs account for about 33% of EGM's Australia wide.
Woolworths through its countless number of hotels owns about 12,000 EGM's Australia wide (6% nationally) Wesfamers through its hotel ownership owns about 3,000 EGM's (1.5% nationally). Keep in mind that the maximum number of machines any hotel can have is 30 and many are limited to somewhere between 15 and 30. Many hotels in fact have a lot less than 15. So what this really amounts to is a whole raft of indiviual shareholders just like me (yeah I own a few '000 Woollies Shares) ultimately owning 1 button on 1 poker machine in some outback pub. How much do you think I make out of Woolies EGM revenue each year?
Crown Casino has over 2500 EGM's on the floor of the Melbourne Casino. I would be a lot more concerned about that type of ownership than Woollies owning 12,000 EGM's across hundreds of pubs Australia wide and Wesfarmers owning 3000.
Cheers,
John B