Former secretary banned for life
A New South Wales pokies club has been fined $100,000 fine for “serious, systemic” violations gaming regulations including providing booze and cash advances to customers to keep them in the game.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a large-scale investigation by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority uncovered the violations at the Illawarra Steelers District Rugby Club, known as Steelers. The fine is the largest ever imposed on a registered club in NSW, the Herald reported.
Steelers employees told investigators they were ordered to offer free alcohol to keep gamblers playing and to run fake EFTPOS transactions disguised as purchases to supply cash for poker players. A doorman at the venue, James Summerell, said he handled transactions as large as $40,000. Some pokies players, he said, would ask for “$5,000 on purchase” up to five times a night.
Duty Manager Graham Crittenden said customers would “ask for a certain amount, and it would be done on a credit purchase.”
The scandal brought out the anti-pokies campaigners, who are calling for the resignation of Peter Newell, chairman of Steelers. Newell is also the chairman of clubs industry body ClubsNSW and president of Clubs Australia.
“If there is to be any boardroom accountability for these disgraceful practices, then the chairman of the board should resign,” said anti-gaming activist Tim Costello. “The ClubsNSW annual general meeting is coming up on October 13 and the members should be insisting on a change of leadership after Mr. Newell’s 14-year tenure, as should the various interstate clubs organizations which have supported Peter Newell as chair of Clubs Australia for the past decade.”
The ILGA concluded that club directors were unaware of Miles’s actions, but added that the club is “ultimately responsible for compliance with licensing matters.”
A ClubsNSW spokesman defended Newell, saying, “Scott Miles himself told investigators that Peter Newell was not aware of the illegal activity going on at the club, and if he had been aware, he would have ‘interjected and stopped the practice.’” ClubsNSW said the Steelers board and its chairman acted “swiftly and decisively the moment the activity was known.”
ILGA Chairman Phillip Crawford said, “Providing inducements to patrons such as free drinks and cash from disguised credit transactions is completely irresponsible and can cause significant harm to people at risk of problem gambling and their families and friends.”
Miles, meanwhile, has been banned for life from holding official positions in the clubs sector. He is currently serving a two-year jail sentence for stealing up to $1 million from the club—money that reportedly funded his own compulsive gambling habit.
