No pub in the Victorian town of Euroa, with a population of about 3,000, has ever had pokies

A community group fighting to keep a regional Victorian town free of poker machines has succeeded in overturning a development application by a local pub that included 30 pokies.



Residents of Euroa, in north-eastern Victoria, have been resisting a decision by the Strathbogie shire council last November to approve a $1.5m refurbishment of the Euroa Hotel, which the pub owner said would be funded by installing up to 30 gambling machines.



No pub in the town, with a population of about 3,000, has ever had pokies, which have grown to number nearly 29,000 in Victoria since they were legalised in 1992.



In a decision to be published on Wednesday, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has overturned the council’s decision, finding that the hotel was located in a strip shopping centre, where pokies are banned by Victorian planning law.



It is a rare win for a community campaign against poker machines in Victoria, but Frank Pierce, from the No Pokies for Euroa group, said he was hesitant to declare victory. “It depends on whether the applicant decides if they’re going to appeal,” he said. “We’re just hoping like hell that this is going to stick.”



Pierce said poker machines were “devastating to small, rural towns” and were often located in disadvantaged areas, “where they just plunder the community”.



The pub proposed to set aside $30,000 per year from the poker machines’ projected revenue to fund sport, treatment for gambling addiction and other community services, but Pierce said this was just a fraction of the money the machines would raise. “[The hotel] says the machines will make between $2.1m and $2.5m in their first year,” he said.



Around 300 residents turned out to a public meeting and street protest to oppose the pokies proposal in March.



The Strathbogie shire mayor, Debra Swan, rejected suggestions that the local council was “pokies-driven”, saying the proposed poker machines were a small part of a larger development for “a beautiful old hotel that needs restoration”.



She said it was difficult to attract investors to small, rural towns such as Euroa. “We want to see Euroa develop and grow, for people to have choice of venues to go to … Sometimes you need to look at the long-term future of the town in an economic development way, and weigh up the pros and cons of a particular proposal,” she said.



Swan said she was shocked by the emotion behind the anti-pokies campaign. “I’ve not known any other time when I’ve been in council that I’ve had the personal abuse and nastiness that’s been associated with this issue,” she said.



She said the council had no position on introducing pokies into Euroa, and encouraged residents opposed to the gambling machines to move for amendments to the municipal strategic statement that guided council planning.



The Victorian government was last week ordered to pay Tatts, one of the state’s former poker-machine operators, $540m in compensation after stripping the company of its licence to run machines in the state. The Victorian premier, Denis Napthine, said Victoria would appeal against the decision.



Australia is sixth on the list of countries in the world the with most gambling machines, with Australian pubs, clubs and casinos operating more machines than Canada and Mexico combined. The Productivity Commission has estimated that around 41% of poker machine revenue comes from at-risk and addicted gamblers.



The owner of the Euroa Hotel declined to comment.

