Podium finish for Western Sydney pubs

Three pubs in Sydney’s west step onto the podium of poker machine misery after Wesley Mission’s analysis of the latest quarterly data from NSW Liquor and Gaming.

The 2023 third quarter data set places the Markets Hotel (Homebush) atop of the dais with the highest losses over the 92-day period, followed by the Cross Roads (Casula) and Wentworth (Homebush West) hotels respectively. Wesley Mission CEO and leading gambling reform advocate, Rev Stu Cameron, says it is time to highlight the significant gambling harm occurring across the state’s hotels and the regulations and business practices that allow it to occur.

“As horrifying as these figures are it’s sadly not surprising when, for example, the Markets Hotel is operating from 6am to 3am Fridays and Saturdays and the gaming room is open 168 hours per week.  It is staggering when you consider the average person’s working week is 37.5 hours.

New South Wales hotels operating the permitted maximum 30 poker machines per venue reaped, on average, $65,589 per machine in Q3 2023, equating to $262,356 per machine per year¹. Maximising a hotel’s poker machine allocation and a venue’s operating hours are an attractive and lucrative revenue stream for hotel operators, generating significantly higher losses per machine for pub owners with 30 active machines.

Cameron says there is a small cohort of pubs that are ‘hell bent’ on maximising every misery laden dollar from their maximum allocation of machines with 22% of hotels responsible for 62% of reported losses².

“It is this zealous pursuit of poker machine profit, particularly by a number of hotel operators, that has helped fuel the state’s growing levels of gambling harm and a worsening public health crisis.

“This pursuit of profit at all costs sees these pubs, and those that own them use legislative loopholes such as ‘hardship provisions’ allowing for extended trading hours. They need to be held to account. Their business models make them more akin to mini casinos than a local pub.”

The 92 days from 1 July to 30 September 2023 saw the people of NSW lose $2.1 billion to poker machines. That equates to $250 for every adult and child in the state.

$1.16 billion was lost to the 65,000 poker machines in Clubs, with $946 million (or almost 45% of all losses) lost to the 22,000 poker machines in hotels. Overall, hotel losses for the top 25% of venues were higher compared to the same period in 2022, signalling an upward trajectory of tragedy, while some Clubs in New South Wales reported a decrease in losses compared to the same quarter in 2022.

Cameron says it’s difficult to definitively state why these decreases in Clubs have occurred.

“The implementation of reforms, education and the cost-of-living crisis have potentially all played a part. Either way, any decrease in losses is always welcomed news.”

Wesley Mission has been advocating for the introduction of a mandatory cashless gambling card with mandatory loss limits, along with a range of other reforms aimed at reducing gambling harm. Wesley Mission is also a member of the NSW Government’s Independent Panel on Gambling Reform.

¹ See Table 1 below.

² See Table 10 below.