Australia's Casino & Gaming Industry - Are things really that bad?

Constantly we hear in the media various proponents of the Australian gaming and casino industry complaining that things in Australia are terrible and regulation is restricting their ability to make money.

Some of the latest complaints are: smoking bans, pokies taxes, too many jursidictions to have machines approved in, too much focus on problem gambling, to name just a few.

But are things really that bad? Take the following as an example:

• URS Casino Industry Economic Report says in 2002/03 the casino industry generated $8.6 billion including contributing $5.9 billion to Australia's GDP. This means that casinos contribute the same as holding the 2000 olympics, each year.
• Tabcorp Holdings, operators of TAB in Victoria and now NSW, Tabaret Poker Machine Venues in Victoria, Club Keno in Victoria and NSW, and the Star City and Jupiters casinos in NSW and Queensland respectively announced and increase in profit of 23% to $311 million on revenues of $2.5 billion.
• Aristocrat returned a net profit of $63.3 million from a loss of $32.9 million the previous year.
• Newcomer Ainsworth Game Technology recorded its first ever profit of $2.1 million on $64.1 million revenue.

All these seem to say that everything is going well for the industry, however the question we need to ask is at what cost. Many people, including some in the industry have said that operators need to refocus and restructure their operations to enable issues such as responsible gambling to be effectively dealt with. Unfortunately these issues are not core business and are handled by PR and community relations people in an effort to pacify opponents.

Myself being previously employed at senior levels within industry can say that responsible gambling did not come into my day-to-day considerations unless it was brought up by regulators, and this was extremely rare (and was not in Australia.)

Serious profits can mean serious consequences, and until changes in operations occur to make gaming a safe experience for its patrons, industry can only expect the wave of concern to grow louder, and rightly so.

GG