Raiders Club wins reprieve from $120,000 fine imposed for breaking poker machine laws
Updated
Canberra's gambling regulator has agreed to withdraw a record $120,000 fine on the Raiders Club for breaking poker machine laws.
Last year the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission found there were eight occasions when Professor Laurie Brown's problem gambling should have been recorded, but staff members failed to do so.
The club had a record $120,000 fine imposed on it as well as stringent extra conditions on its licence.
Unhappy with the punishment, and adamant that staff had not seen any problem gambling signs from Professor Brown, the Raiders appealed the decision in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT).
Now the commission and the Raiders have agreed that the fine be scrapped and replaced by a reprimand as disciplinary action.
But Professor Brown said scrapping the $120,000 fine was outrageous and pathetic.
"I think the Raiders should hang their heads in shame," she said.
"I think it sends very clear messages that the rules are rigged so the house always wins — to use a sort of gambling analogy.
"If this is not a wake-up call to government to change the laws around operating poker machines then I don't know what is."
The poker machines at the Raiders Club in Belconnen generate $6.5 million in revenue a year.
But they are also a mecca for problem gamblers like Professor Brown, who fed more than $200,000 through poker machines at Raiders Clubs in Canberra.
The addictive gambling went on for over 18 months at the Raiders Belconnen site, before the alert was finally raised by her bank at the beginning of 2017.
The Raiders would not comment on the removal of the fine, but ACAT documents show the club has decided to demonstrate its continuing commitment to support harm-minimisation measures by making a donation of $60,000 to an appropriate charity.
An external compliance report on the Raiders Club's training and procedures for recording gambling incidents will also be completed by December 2019.
A spokeswoman from the ACT Government's Access Canberra said the Gambling and Racing Commission could not comment until its board made a decision "in accordance with the consent orders" signalled at ACAT.
'Money-seeking' a code red in problem gambling
The ABC has seen the documents in the case and subsequent appeal.
They show that on each occasion Professor Brown was able to get thousands of dollars in cash to feed the pokies, getting around ATM withdrawal limits by using the club's EFTPOS machine to make multiple withdrawals.
The EFTPOS machine was behind the counter at the club and required a staff member to input a PIN and swipe the patron's card before money could be taken out.
Staff were trained in the gambling behaviour checklist which states "that a sign of a problem gambler is to get cash out on two or more occasions from [an] ATM or EFTPOS."
That is a sign of "money seeking" and is a code red for predicting problem gambling.
Staff were required by the law to identify such problem gamblers and record them on a central register.
On none of the eight occasions did staff report the multiple withdrawals even though cash was obtained at least four times during each gambling event.
One staff member did tell investigators that on several occasions Professor Brown's multiple withdrawals were reported to duty managers, but no action was taken.
The Raiders Club disputes that.
The appeal document states: "staff did not observe the member having a gambling problem".
The worst instance occurred on November 9th 2016, where, in less than two hours, Professor Brown was able to make seven withdrawals of $400 or $500 each, adding up to a total of $3,500 in one gambling session.
Topics: courts-and-trials, gambling, community-and-society, canberra-2600, act
First posted
