Just off the freeway in a small suburb in Melbourne’s west is the Kealba Hotel. It looks like any other suburban sports pub: there’s a bistro and a beer garden, an indoor children’s playground, and huge TV screens showing live football matches and horse races.
And there are 86 poker machines. This pub in the middle of Brimbank, Victoria’s third most disadvantaged local government area, has had the dubious distinction, year after year, of being the venue in the state where people lose the most money on the pokies.
