Last year punters lost $130 million gambling at the Catholic Clubs of Sydney, writes Wendy Carlisle. How can this fact be reconciled with the tenets of the Catholic faith?

Have you heard the one about the gambling addict who punched a poker machine at one of Sydney's most successful Catholic Clubs and broke the glass and his finger?

Saad tells me his story at the Arabic Council in Bankstown in Sydney's west where he's receiving counselling for a gambling addiction that has cost him about $200,000.

"I said kick me out if you want," he said, meaning the club bouncers were invited to ask him to leave.

"Well, did they?" I ask, leaning forward, enthralled.

He looks at me as if I'm stupid and resumes his story in broken English.

"No. Because you know I give, like my money I give him his wages the supervisor.

When I lose $5,000 a night, or $6,000, I pay for supervisor and I pay for workers. I pay for everything."

Saad snorts out a sad little laugh at the end of this explanation. I have to agree the logic is faultless: why would you kick out a man who's making your club financially successful?

This then is the root of the split between the Catholic Church and their wayward brethren, the Catholic Clubs of Sydney. These clubs have nearly 1,700 poker machines between them where last year punters lost $130 million. 

Catholic club gaming revenues and poker machines 2011/12 

Club name

Number of electronic gaming machines [i]

Gaming revenue ($000) [ii]

Gaming revenue as a percentage of club revenue [iii]

Dooley's Lidcome Catholic Club

361

$44,339

81%

Dooley's Regents Park

20

nd [iv]

Campbelltown Catholic Club

464

$28,710

58%

Club Central Hurstville

263

$24,763

93%

Club Central Menai

187

$9,057

70%

Liverpool Catholic Club

401

$28,000 [v]

57%

TOTAL

1696

$134,869

[i] Source: NSW Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing, May 2012 Clubs data. Not publicly available

[ii] Based on data on individual Club Annual Reports 2010/2011

[iii]Calculated as a percentage of 2011 total club revenues

[iv] Gaming revenue for Regent's Park not separately disclosed in Dooley's Annual Report

[v] Liverpool Catholic Club does not separately disclose Gaming Revenue. This information was provided by CEO John Turnbull

Without the pokies, the Catholic Clubs would be virtually penniless.

Theirs is a broken business model, says Paul O'Callaghan, from Catholic Social Services Australia.

"It depends on essentially people losing money and getting themselves into very deep difficulties of the kind we know about, depression, relationship breakdown, job losses bankruptcy and suicide," he said.

The relationship between the Catholic Church and the Clubs is in name only. There is no formal relationship of any kind. Catholic clubs were first established in working class Sydney when the NSW government provided concessional tax rates and not-for-profit status for them. It was the same principles that fostered the establishment of RSLs, Rugby Leagues Clubs and bowling clubs. The profits would would be funnelled back into their communities.

"The Catholic clubs know they are in a very murky space," one source told me.

"That's why some of them don't even say upfront they're Catholic clubs anymore."

In 2007, the Illawarra Catholic Club rebranded itself and stripped the word Catholic from its title, instead calling the clubs Club Central Hurstville and Club Central Menai.

Club documents say this was to "secure our long-term future in an ever-changing and challenging regulatory landscape".

Club Central Hurstville receives $21 million - more than 90 per cent of its revenue -  from the pokies. Club Central Menai takes 70 per cent of its revenue from gaming machines.

These days, you don't have to be Catholic to join the Catholic Clubs, and the NSW Government obliges the clubs to funnel 1.8 per cent of gaming revenue back into the community.

Last year, the Australian Bishops conference took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement urging the Catholic clubs to support the Gillard Government's mandatory pre-commitment reforms.

The Catholic clubs were unrepentant and ignored the Bishops. Instead, they supported a well-funded Clubs Australia campaign that famously labelled the Government's reform agenda as "Un-Australian" and a "licence to punt". What's next, it asked, "a licence to drink?" 

So why is there this disconnect between the Catholic Church says about problem gamblers and what the Catholic Clubs say?

"I can't get into the Catholic side of it, I am not a Catholic. I'm here to run a Catholic Club," explains John Turnbull, chief executive of the Liverpool Catholic Club.

"You must have an opinion on this, I have an opinion. And I presume the Catholic Church has an opinion. But are we doing anything illegal?

"People do make a choice to come and enjoy themselves on poker machines."

And this is the really sore point between the Church and the clubs: what proportion of club gambling revenue comes from problem gamblers?

The Productivity Commission says it's 40 per cent.

"Well, I can't see how that happens here" says John Turnbull. His club has 50,000 members and 401 poker machines where players lost $28 million last year. Turnbull says that his club has just eight problem gamblers.

"Because as members only, we only permit members coming in, I think you'll find the problem gamblers are very much connected to the hotel industry," he said.

"Yeah, I've heard that," says Paul O'Callaghan.

"All I can say is that as far as the Australian Churches gambling taskforce is concerned, we would be very keen to see any evidence about how clubs that have at least an affiliation with the Church would have a different outcome from other clubs."

Back at the Arabic Council in Bankstown Saad is telling me: "Gambling broke my life. I lost my wife - first one - I lost my house, you know?"

And he's struggling with the idea that he lost so much in a club that connects itself with the Catholic faith.

"Catholic - you have to be church or mosque or something good for people, not for gambling."

Paul O'Callaghan, from Catholic Social Services, is clearly edging along the same conclusions. The reliance on poker machine revenue raises questions about the Catholic Clubs' "alignment with the mission of the core principles from the Catholic faith ... like dignity and respect for human life".

Gambling & The Church 

Wendy Carlisle is an investigative reporter with Radio National's Background Briefing. Hear her report "The Church, the Clubs and their pokies" here.