The largest players in the poker machine industry are the Woolworths and Coles our major supermarket players locally.
Where do you shop?
[url=http://www.getup.org.au/coles]Link to tell the CEO of Wesfarmers (Coles) what you think about poker machines[/url]
[url=http://www.getup.org.au/woolworths]Link to tell the CEO of Woolworths what you think about poker machines[/url]
Woolworths and Coles together are the largest owner of poker machines in Australia with more than 15000 machines.
Woolworths alone owns more poker machines than the top five Las Vegas casinos combined taking in an estimated billion dollars a year – four hundred million dollars of which is estimated to come directly from problem gamblers.
The same trusted corporate giants who pride themselves on offering quality products to millions of Australians are simultaneously bankrolling a product that takes the food off many family dinner tables.
Owning such a large share of the industry puts these corporate giants in a powerful position to enact and inspire real change. They can lead Canberra by example and minimise the harm posed by poker machines – starting with those at their own venues.
If you wish to write a short message urging Coles and Woolies to create corporate-led reform you can do it here:
Coles: http://www.getup.org.au/coles
Woolies: http://www.getup.org.au/woolworths
Late last year GetUp members whose lives have been devastated by problem gambling went to the Woolworths Annual General Meeting as proxies for shareholders and put a human face to their involvement in this dangerous industry.
Members from our community voiced their concerns called for answers and questioned the motivation behind Woolworths pouring hundreds of thousands of shareholder dollars into the Clubs Industries misleading and dirty advertising campaign against poker machine reform.
It is clear from both polling and our own community that reform is desperately wanted on this issue. More than 76000 people signed a GetUp petition for pokies reform and called for Woolies to evaluate their position on poker machine reform.
PS – Yesterday Coles announced that it was looking to sell some of its pokies venues.