Leisure co-operatives: the institutionalization of gambling and the growth of large leisure organizations in New South Wales

Abstract

This thesis represents one of the first steps in the study of large leisure organizations. In the last quarter century, licenced or registered clubs in New South Wales have increasingly become the locales for eating, drinking, gambling, entertainment and the pursuit of sports and hobbies. Some registered clubs are large, with memberships numbering in the thousands, and their activities have been financed by the profits from gambling slot machines of which the clubs have exclusive legal use. In the first part,the historical reasons for the emergence of the registered clubs will be documented. While the strength of the Temperance movement prevented liquor reform before the Second World War, wartime restrictions, especially the shortage of beer and early closing of hotels, led to intolerable drinking conditions for the general public. So great was the discontent, that the N.S.W. Labour Government made provision for co-operative functional alter­natives - registered clubs and community hotels. In the following decade the registered clubs,sustained financially by illegal poker machine profits grew in strength at the expense of the hotels. Because hotels could not satisfy the needs of the drinking public, further expansion in clubs took place in the mid-1950s, and as a result of hotels' action in 1956 poker machines were legalized, thus ensuring the financial success of the clubs. Only in the late 1960s, have significant government curbs been placed on the growth of the registered clubs. In the second part of the thesis, consideration is given to the importance of poker machine finances in club growth. It will be shown that both the clubs and the State depend heavily upon poker machine profits. Reasons why New South Welshmen play the poker machines with such persistence will be examined. The final part of the thesis is devoted to a case study of a large registered club with 12,600 members. Like consumer co-operatives the club has an open membership, and a formal democratic structure. However, an oligarchy dominates the club and the membership is happy to accept this situation largely because of the competence of the club's executive. Members visit the club in groups usually consisting of spouses, relatives, work colleagues, friends and neighbours who participate in a variety of activities - eating, drinking, playing poker machines, dancing, watching entertainment and attending intraclub meetings. While the great bulk of the club's facilities are concerned with provisions for recuperation, relaxation and entertainment, a small number of intraclubs satisfy the self-development leisure functions of about 5 per cent of the membership. Generally speaking, clubs neglect the self-development functions that intraclubs serve.