''I think if you went around the table you'd find it 50-50 between people who think pokies are either a good thing or a shit of a thing. No doubt there's evidence to show families have been busted up and so on, but the state and community having accepted that pokies are a major form of revenue, it now gets back to personal responsibility.'' Ron (''Just Ron'') on the far left stool knows a bit about that. Those machines out the back had their hooks in him for a while, he admits. ''I gambled a lot. I'd put $100 in there and that's all I earned in a day. I thought 'What the hell am I doing? I worked hard for this and I come in here and blow it all away'. So I self-expelled myself from here and the RSL.'' Is he better now? ''Dunno about better,'' chips in one of the others. ''He just doesn't bet as much.'' ClubsAustralia, which is campaigning against the Wilkie reforms, argues it is gaming venues in regional areas that have the most to lose. ''The impact will be felt hardest in the bush because the clubs there have the least capacity to meet the cost of upgrading or replacing their machines and there are fewer alternatives to choose from for entertainment,'' says Josh Landis, executive manager for policy and government. Most country clubs have machines that are more than five years old and under the pre-commitment proposals these will need to be replaced at a cost of up to $25,000 each, he says. Even newer machines would need upgrades at substantial cost.

''In the country the club is a meeting place, not just somewhere to go for a drink or a meal or to play the machines,'' he says. ''When that venue struggles, the whole community struggles.'' No one at the Kyneton Bowling Club has any illusions about pokies and their glowing but false allure of future riches. Last year it brought the club to its knees, sending it into receivership. Nor does anyone quite get how a place with 25 ''licences to print money'' went broke. The club got its pokies in 1994 and by 2000 was among the top-earning gaming venues in country Victoria. It had 1000 members, 70 per cent of them gaming or social members and began making plans for a major $1.9 million redevelopment. But partly due to its central location - surrounded by the library, historic mechanics institute, primary school and playground - it ran into a storm of opposition. ''A strong but vocal minority, many of whom were Johnny-come-latelys to the town, opposed us all the way,'' growls Ross. By the time it went ahead - more than five years later - the cost had blown out to $4.3 million. Past president John MacDonald says the club simply could not service the debt and in March last year receivers Ferrier Hodgson closed the bar and gaming operations. In May it was reopened after the Maryborough Highland Society took over the operation or, as manager Rebecca Bell says, was ''trusted to turn the club back to what it was''.

According to the society and most of the membership - now down to about 400 - the Wilkie reforms are a threat to its existence and to the benefits they say ripple out. ''The broader Kyneton community is going to miss out,'' says Ms Bell. ''We've given out quite a large amount of money and benefits in the short time I've been here.'' She lists some of the contributions: to the annual Daffodil Festival, community radio station, the Kyneton Connect newsletter, a $50 club voucher for Hesket Primary School. But the bulk of the give-back, she says, is in free room use to community groups. But as Dr Lorraine Beyer, sustainable communities planner with Macedon Ranges Shire Council points out, such donations are a legislated community benefit requirement. A Productivity Commission report in June last year noted: ''Most club benefits from pokie machines are to members, not to the public at large." There are three gaming venues in Macedon Ranges, a shire of 1750 square kilometres with more than 40,000 people. Kyneton, about midway between Melbourne and Bendigo with about 4400 people, has two of those venues and 53 of the total 95 gaming machines. In 2009-10, player losses at the bowling club and Kyneton RSL were $3,753,094. That includes the months the bowling club was closed. Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics and Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation statistics, that's a loss of $1134 for every local adult. But only $13 per adult went back to the broader community as donations under the community benefits system. That's 1.1 per cent of total losses and 3.4 per cent of the clubs' one-third share of profits. The bowling club's community benefit statement shows it made $830 of community donations (excluding the monthly raffles), provided $460 for school bowls, $760 for ''handicapped therapy'' and $4550 worth of free room use. The bulk of so-called class A funds of $33,141 went into the club for greens maintenance, trophies, happy hour catering and bowls buses.

Kyneton RSL's $134,642 class A benefits included $10,663 in book donations to local schools; $6000 to the Kyneton District Health Service, St John's Ambulance, a cancer group and individuals; $1000 to Kyneton Fire Brigade; $10,260 to sporting clubs and special-needs youth; and almost $23,000 in free venue use and veterans' wakes. Malcolm Blandthorn, highland society general manager, says the bowling club's parlous financial state means it is inevitable as much money as possible is ploughed back into the club until it starts to make a profit. Much of the opposition to the pokies may come from the tree-changers who've been coming into the area in the past 10 years, but organic masseuse and writer Danielle White is a third-generation Kynetonian who says the few benefits of gaming are far outweighed by the negatives. ''I live quite near both venues,'' she says, sitting in the Ladle Cafe in Piper Street. ''I see people trundle off to the pokies during the day, return a little bit pickled and, I imagine, with quite a bit less money in their pockets. I don't see that as a positive for this town.'' In a town where about a quarter of the population is over 64, the gaming venues preyed on the lonely and isolated elderly, she says. Macedon Ranges mayor Cr Henry McLaughlin says the council officially supports mandatory pre-commitment. ''I think it's a great idea, he says. ''Our argument is not with gambling itself; the argument is with the product safety issues specifically of electronic gaming machines.''

But the club members say their preferred form of gaming is the only one being targeted. ''If they're going to do this, why not the same for the tote or Tattslotto, or on the race courses?'' asks Michael Buckley, real estate agent and a bowling club member for 40 years. Loading Shirley Woods, visiting from Pakenham, says the proposed reforms are ''a lot of rot … it's a lovely place to just come and have a talk. You don't have to gamble.'' ''That's right,'' jokes 'Just Ron', a little wistfully. ''You can sit and watch other people lose their money.''