Pokies venues on government land

December 17, 2023

This list tracks Victorian pokies venues which operate on government owned land. It would be great to expand this to a national list as it is an obvious way to add to this list of former pokies venues and work to get the current number of 5000 pokies venues reduced.

Altona Bowls Club: the only Victorian pokies den located on the same land as a council chamber, in this case at City of Hobsons Bay. Appears to have an all male board.

Altona Sports Club: The landlord is City of Hobsons Bay. No information about board on website.

Bendigo Stadium: is a basketball stadium on council land with a big pokies operation on-site to help fund it. They tried to put pokies into other venues too.

Crown Melbourne: long term lease from Victorian government.

Club Noble: home to the Noble Park Football Club and has a 27 year lease with the City of Greater Dandenong. All male board.

Deer Park Football Club: applied for additional machines in 2015. Land lord is City of Brimbank and hosted Gaming Minister Marlene Kairouz at a pokie clubs event shortly before the 2018 Victorian election.

Essendon Football Club: City of Moonee Valley to potentially get a new lease deal at their Windy Hill home base. This is currently costing Essendon only $63,000 a year in lease payments (see Moonee Valley lease register), compared with the $300,000 Essendon is paying City of Melton for the Melton Country Club.

Green Gully Soccer Club: a long-term peppercorn lease from City of Brimbank is expiring shortly and the club is seeking a long term extension once council has settled its gaming policy. See Star Weekly report.

Hastings Club: Page 5 of this Mornington Peninsula lease register describes a 20 year lease that expired on Dec 31, 2016 and was costing the pokies venue $4000 per year. The 2017-18 Hastings Club annual report has some very frank comments about council and the pokies (see p15-19).

Kyabram Club: old hospital site with 2 of 9 female directors. Have queried land ownership.

Montmorency RSL: currently paying City of Banyule $11,445 a year. The lease was due to expire in December 2020 but they had 8x5 year extension options. See p3 of lease register.

Lakes Entrance Bowls Club: a big operation which should be paying more rent to its council landlord.

Melton Country Club: Essendon Football Club successfully lobbied in 2018-19 for a long term lease from City of Melton running at almost $300,000 per year. See coverage in The Age.

St Albans Sports Club: a long-term peppercorn lease from City of Brimbank expired in 2019 and was renewed with higher rental figures and incentives to encourage reduced gambling harm. See Star Weekly report.

VicTrack: 2010 proposal in Castlemaine that was defeated.

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Pokies venues on government land

December 17, 2023

This list tracks Victorian pokies venues which operate on government owned land. It would be great to expand this to a national list as it is an obvious way to add to this list of former pokies venues and work to get the current number of 5000 pokies venues reduced.