Victoria's pokies-owning pubs and clubs have been handed a jackpot, with an overhaul of state laws providing longer licences and more lenient ownership limits.
On Friday, the Andrews government said it would extend the term of poker machine entitlements to 20 years. The change comes in response to long-running industry complaints that the existing 10-year period, due to expire in 2022, has made it too difficult for operators to plan their business and obtain finance.
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Victoria's addiction to pokies
They've been legal in Victoria for the past 25 years, and though the state government has now capped the number of pokies allowed, they remain a divisive, and expensive, habit.
Many in the sector had been hoping for venues to have their licences held in perpetuity – as is the case in most other states – but operators consider the new 20-year licence a significant win.
Under the changes, licence holders will now automatically keep their existing licences until 2032 provided they make a payment to the government in 2022 to get the extension.
Community Clubs Victoria, whose members include nearly 200 clubs with pokies, said the change provided greater certainty for clubs "as they plan developments for their sporting and community facilities".
The state's largest provider of pokies, the ALH Group, part-owned by supermarket giant Woolworths, also welcomed the government's move to extend the term of gaming machine entitlements.
Also unveiled on Friday was a 25-year freeze on the cap on the number of gaming machines, at 27,372, which has remained largely unchanged since the 1990s. The number of machines in Victoria is about 26,300, excluding Crown (Crown's 2500-odd machines aren't factored into the cap).
A limit of 105 machines for each individual venue will remain in place.
Club venue change
But the changes also doubled the number of poker machines that Victorian club operators are allowed to run, from 420 to 840. That means club operators can now run eight separate venues, up from four.
Mark Zirnsak, of the Victorian Inter-Church Gambling Taskforce, said the government's decision to extend the licence period was largely disappointing.
"If we have to have pokies at all, we would have preferred to keep the 10-year licence, but at least the government hasn't given them the indefinite licences they wanted," he said.
"Limiting licence periods means we, as a community, reserve the right to have a say about whether we want to keep these machines or change the terms ... it gives us the opportunity to have that conversation."
Some club must have been lobbying because they wanted more machines, but I have no idea who they might be.
Mark Zirnsak
Club operators welcomed the easing of pokies ownership restrictions, saying the present caps of 420 machines have proved "unnecessarily restrictive".
The new arrangements will allow the benefits of gaming to be spread across more clubs," Community Clubs Victoria said.
But the group was unhappy with the freeze on the gap of poker machines statewide, saying the government had "effectively ruled out any opportunity for new clubs to expand".
"The government has frozen the number of gaming entitlements," the group said, "and this has effectively frozen new clubs out, particularly in growth areas."
New measures call
Mr Zirnsak said the decision to double the entitlement to 840 machines for individual club operators was "bizarre".
"Some club must have been lobbying because they wanted more machines, but I have no idea who they might be," he said.
He said he hoped the government would follow the new concessions given to the pokies industry with stronger measures to tackle problem gambling.
"We hope the government is going to announce some tough harm-minimisation measures and make some tough calls," he said.
The government on Friday committed to announcing harm-minimisation measures relating to gaming machines in coming months,
Gaming Minister Marlene Kairouz said the reforms followed a review that included more than 200 public submissions.
The statewide poker machine cap does not include the 2500 gaming machines at Southbank's Crown casino.
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