A $35 million renovation to the club’s Redfern premises is
expected to begin later this year but the pokies will be sold off, leagues club
chairman Bill Alexiou-Hucker says.
He and Souths football club co-owner Peter Holmes a Court
fronted reporters at Redfern
Town Hall after the board
voted 4-3 in support of a pokie-free venue.
The plan gained momentum after Mr Holmes a Court and fellow
Souths owner, actor Russell Crowe, proposed the idea in September.
But Mr Alexiou-Hucker said the club would not sell all of
the “family silver”, instead deciding to retain the machine licences,
worth around $800,000.
“This is new ground we’re talking about here and the
football club agreed to that,” Mr Alexiou-Hucker said of the plan to
retain the licences.
“And so we just felt that we didn’t want to sell all
the family silver, and keep it there for a rainy day.”
South Australian independent Senator Nick Xenophon – a long
time campaigner against poker machines in state parliament – praised the move
and said clubs that go pokie free should be given tax concessions.
“It’s a gutsy move,” he said.
“I wish them well and I want to do everything I can to
give them support at a federal level in terms of getting the tax breaks they
deserve and the concessions they deserve to make that shift to a pokies free
venue.”
The club estimates the machines generate $150,000 a month in
revenue, but Mr Alexiou-Hucker said pokies don’t guarantee a club’s success.
“The board felt, with all of the statistics that we
have been provided with … that the poker machines weren’t going to be the
river of gold that they may once have been,” he said.
Research performed for the club show 88 per cent of the
population in a three km radius of its premises are 20-44 years old and
“young, affluent singles and sharers enjoying single life”.
Mr Holmes a Court said increasing membership to the football
club would increase patronage of the leagues club and drive up revenues.
“We’ve watched AFL kick our butt (and) grow to 500,000
members (over the past 10 years) while rugby league has grown to 50,000
members,” he said.
“The future of rugby league being strong in NSW is
around membership, not poker machines.”
He said the club would partner with the Dedes Group to
operate the club’s restaurant and other facilities once it reopened, following
its planned expansion from 1,500 square metres to 2,500 square metres.
Gerard Byrne, who heads The Salvation Army’s recovery
services for people with drug, alcohol and gambling problems, praised the
club’s decision but said it would not stop problem gamblers.
“People that are problem gamblers certainly would go
and utilise other venues – that’s probably happening anyway,” Mr Byrne
told AAP.
Club members must vote on the no pokies plan before it goes
ahead but Souths has received overwhelming public support since September.
The development application to expand the premises is
expected to be approved sometime in April, Mr Alexiou-Hucker said.