WILLIAMSTOWN Football Club has applied to Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation to install five more electronic gaming machines at its Seagulls Nest Hotel in Newport, bumping up the number of machines to 66.
Hobsons Bay Council is expected to make a submission to the VCGLR regarding the club’s application.
An officer’s report prepared for last night’s council meeting states: “Changes to the Hobsons Bay planning scheme now prohibit any increase in gaming machines at Newport Junction where the Seagulls Nest Hotel is located.”
The council’s gaming policy “supports the reduction of EGMs and opposes additional EGMs . . . particularly where an increase of EGMs is demonstrated to have a negative impact.”
Club CEO Brendan Curry said the hotel originally had a permit for up to 70 machines.
He said the club previously had 66 machines but lost five when regional caps were introduced by the state government in 2001. Hobsons Bay’s machines were capped at 579, but this cap is seven shy of having been filled.
The club holds five machine entitlements that have not received permits from the VCGLR.
“We’re just trying to get back to what we originally had. When we had the gaming option a couple of years ago we bought 66 entitlements — we actually got that through the government, 66 gaming entitlements — yet we’re only operating 61 machines,” Mr Curry said. “We’re just trying to get back what we originally had — we didn’t lose them through the Hobsons Bay Council taking them off us.”
Gamblers in Hobsons Bay lost $52,632,388 on the pokies last financial year, with adults losing an average of $763 each on pokie machines. The municipality was ranked No. 12 in terms of losses among Victorian municipalities.
Seagulls Nest recorded the third-highest gaming machine revenue in the municipality at $6,639,459.
Mr Curry said: “We sponsor many of the local community groups in the Hobsons Bay area and we’ve been able to put $2.1 million of the football club’s money in to a new $9 million facility (as part of redevelopment of the Williamstown Cricket Ground).
“I think that’s living proof of how we’re utilising the money for a great community asset.”
