Digging deep into the mystery of gaming jobs figures

Claims about effects of pokies changes vary wildly, explains Martyn Goddard

WHAT is the truth about the number of jobs involved in running pokies in pubs and clubs?

The claims have varied from below 200 (from the Labor Party) to 5000 (from the Federal Group), with many other figures between those extremes.

The study commissioned by the state Treasury from independent economists is, despite sniping from the Hospitality Association, rigorous and credible.

It establishes the number of full-time jobs in all sections of the gambling industry and then uses conventional and transparent modelling techniques to work out how many indirect jobs are likely to be created in the broader economy. It doesn’t directly model Labor’s policy of removing poker machines from pubs and clubs.

But it provides so much information that we can fairly easily work it out for ourselves.

The pokies’ share of pub and club employment — operators, technicians and managers — works out to 273 jobs on a full-time equivalent basis.

Working out the number of indirect jobs is harder.

Overall, the report calculates the entire gambling industry involves between 676 and 916 full-time equivalent jobs in Tasmania.

But only about a quarter of these can be put down to pokies in pubs and clubs. That means the real figure is likely

to be somewhere between 169 and 229 indirect jobs.

All up, those pub-and-club pokies account for between 442 and 502 jobs. That’s a long way short of the 5000 cited by the industry, whose claims have been supported by the Treasurer, Peter Gutwein.

If there is any respectable evidence for such an unbelievably high figure, it should be made public.

But all of these estimates of economic contribution only answer half the question.

They don’t talk about opportunity cost — that is, what would happen if the money was spent on something else.

Evidence from Australia and elsewhere shows that when pokies are removed, the former punters don’t switch to other forms of gambling.

The either spend the money on other things or they save some.

The Treasury report says Tasmanians lost over $114 million on pokies in pubs and clubs during 2015-16.

But much of that money does not find its way back into the Tasmanian economy.

Big company operators like the Federal Group and the owners of hotel chains often invest outside Tasmania or spend their profits largely outside the state.

Buying a new luxury car, taking an overseas trip or buying a corporate jet doesn’t contribute much to this state’s economy.

But most punters have comparatively low incomes and can be expected to spend most of the money they have — not on luxury cars but on day-to-day living.

That money would stay here and benefit us all, creating a great deal more than 500 new jobs.