The success of the Vikings Group in getting approval for a new club just outside the ACT has drawn criticism from opponents of poker machines who decry clubs' ability to jump jurisdictions to get easier rules.
"At a time when the ACT is actively seeking to reduce reliance on poker machines and strengthen gambling harm protections, we believe there needs to be a broader discussion about what happens when gaming activity moves just across the border into NSW," Margot Sachse, president of the Jerrabomberra Residents Association, said.
The local council had voiced its worries about the new club in Jerrabomberra but the club took the matter to the New South Wales Land and Environment Court which approved a scaled-down version of the original application.
Local residents opposed the initial plan on noise, traffic and other grounds, but also because they believed more than a hundred poker machines near their homes and families would be too much of a draw for people with potential and existing gambling addiction.
The ACT government has been trying to wean clubs off poker machine revenue. The 5000 or so machines in all Canberra clubs in 2018 fell to around 3500, with the ACT government aiming to get the number down to 1000.
This increasingly difficult environment for poker machine clubs in the ACT prompted the move over the border. "Our costs have risen dramatically, and revenue does not keep pace, so our profitability is virtually non-existent. If we want to grow our core business, we have to go over the border," Vikings chief executive Anthony Hill said in 2024.
He was contacted for comment on the latest victory but didn't respond.
Greens councillor on Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council, Katrina Willis, was angry that the club had managed to jump jurisdictions, particularly when the NSW government was talking tough on gambling machine reform.
"Of particular concern in this case is that by shifting from the ACT to NSW, the Vikings club is undermining genuine efforts to reform poker machine laws and address gambling harm," Ms Willis said.
"On 15 September, the ACT Government announced a major package of gambling-harm reforms," Ms Sachse of the residents' association said.
The reforms would include "mandatory account-based cashless gaming, restrictions on access to cash at poker machine venues, reduced poker-machine operating hours and a progressive reduction in poker machine authorisations to no more than 1000 by 2045," she said.
"At the same time, an ACT-based club has now received approval for a new poker-machine venue immediately across the NSW border, where its gaming operations will be regulated under NSW rather than ACT laws."
The Vikings Group has not said how many machines it will have at its new NSW club but one estimate, made according to floor space in the plans, put it at between 120 and 150 machines.
In the last year for which figures were available, gamblers at what were then the four Vikings clubs lost $24,350,687 on Vikings poker machines.
The business modified the proposal for what it called the Poplars Club in Jerrabomberra. The original proposal would have had a capacity of 1300 patrons. The new, approved version would have a capacity of 800 people.
There is no stipulation on how many poker machines the new club can have but a "gaming lounge" remains part of the approved plan.
Unease about ACT clubs' reliance on poker machine revenue probably increased with the news of the death of Raimo "Ray" Kasurinen who took his own life in 2020 after pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into machines at the Hellenic Club of Canberra in Woden.
The club was fined $1.2 million by the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission. The club appealed and won a partial victory/defeat: the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal cleared it of failing to record signs of the couple's problem gambling but the tribunal found it "guilty" of allowing them to withdraw batches of $200 in quick succession from the eftpos machine there, so getting around regulations meant to put a ceiling on withdrawals.
