Aussie veterans join fight against poker machines

Australian military veterans are joining in the fight against poker machines and other gambling devices in the Land Down Under. Members of the Returned and Services League (RSL), a group that’s been active in Australia for more than 100 years, are pushing their leadership to remove poker machines from the group’s clubhouses and focus more on support services for veterans.
It’s a move the belies the stereotype of the hard-partying veteran, but is very much in tune with recent efforts in the country to reign in the proliferation of gambling machines and advertising across the Australian cultural landscape.
The effort to remove poker machines from RSL clubs is being led by 32-year-old former Australian Army office former Army officer David Petersen. Petersen is the current president of the Camberwell club, an RSL outlet that does not offer gambling in any form.
Ostensibly, RSL clubs have always offered gambling devices as a means of raising money to provide services to veterans, but that’s not how it’s actually worked out. According to a report on CalvinAyre.com, Austalia’s 52 RSL clubs brought in $182.9 million in revenue in 2017, with a profit of only $1.8. They do, however, direct about $11 million of that revenue towards veterans services.
As far back as 2016, when the group was celebrating its 100-year-anniversary, it was being criticized for focusing too much on alcohol and gambling, something that’s not appealing to younger vets. One former serviceman summed up the situation to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation saying, “I believe that the RSL is more focused on pokies and alcohol … this is a common belief among my friends that have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The push to remove poker machines from RSL clubs is part of large, and growing, effort in Australia and other countries to reign in what critics say are the excesses of the gambling industry.