By Clyde Mooney
A small group of Woolworths shareholders is lobbying the company to introduce a $1 bet limit on its 12,000 poker machines.
The activist group GetUp has mobilised a contingent of 210 Woolworths shareholders into an extraordinary general meeting, with a special resolution to amend the company’s constitution and introduce the betting limit.
The group says it is concerned at the ‘family-friendly’ brand of Woolworths, which it claims is profiteering at the expense of problem gamblers.
"We are taking this measure because we are opposed to the company we own taking sizeable amounts of money from problem gamblers," they said.
ALH – 75 per cent owned by the supermarket giant – is the largest hotel operator in the country with over 300 venues, and holds six per cent of the nation’s poker machines.
The shareholders driven by GetUp represent just 0.0005 per cent of the company’s total shareholders.
Representatives of Woolworths and ALH declined to comment.
Congrats to those Woolies shareholders!Pity they aren’t lobbying to ban pokies altogether. Our pubs might live again! Considering that casino / gambling venue employees have the greatest rate of gambling addiction of any employee group…I am surprised that pokies are even tolerated!
Libby Mitchell – you’re a genius. I am sure those employees you are so concerned about would rather keep their job! ” Our pubs might live again”, you might be too young to remember the days before Pokies, when ALL pubs were dark, smelly holes, with a new pub going under every week.
I Get Up are so concerned about evil pubs, or left wing papers moving to the middle, then they should buy Woolies or Fairfax!