The Parramatta region, which includes Wentworthville, is seventh on the list of problem areas on the Australian east coast, with average losses of $5766 a year per person - or 18 per cent of median incomes, a report by UnitingCare states. The anti-pokies campaigner, the Reverend Tim Costello, blasted the gaming authority as a ''protection racket for the pokies industry''. ''There is a cancer throughout the system and no one in the NSW government wants to do anything about it because, with $12 billion behind them, the clubs are a powerful political ally,'' he said. ''If you're going to distribute community benefit from public licences for pokies, you do it systematically, with real donations that actually provide real benefit. You don't let clubs decide where the money goes and how much they give.'' The deal emerged days after the industry won a two-year extension from the federal government to implement new limits on how much pokie players can bet. Under the reforms, pokies will have to offer punters the option to preset how much they are willing to lose.

The Monash University academic Charles Livingstone, who has studied the link between gaming machines and areas of socio-economic disadvantage, said the approvals system was ''utter nonsense''. ''The whole system in NSW is about as transparent as a block of concrete. The fact is that successive governments in NSW have refused to fund infrastructure and the clubs have offered to do a bit here and a bit there as long as it is on their terms.'' Dr Livingstone's most recent report estimated that just 1.3 per cent of pokies losses comes back to the community from clubs in NSW. The authority approved 303 new machines this financial year according to its annual report - up from 248 in 2011. There is about 95,000 machines now in NSW. The $500,000 donation by Wenty Leagues represents a third of the cost for the 300-seat grandstand and changing rooms at Ringrose, which is overseen by the Leagues club.

The 50-year-old wooden stand at the ground has been deemed unsafe and the deputy mayor, John Brodie, said the pokies deal was the only way to pay for a new one. ''It would be less than honest to suggest that it is not self-serving [for Wenty Leagues] in a sense but the fact is the council has no money to replace a grandstand that is dangerous. The only way we can get new facilities there is if the club puts in the money to build it,'' he said. He insisted there was a wider community benefit as other groups use the ground, including a ladies vigoro tournament six years ago. The club's chief executive, Dave Brace, said 43 junior teams associated with Wenty Leagues used the ground as well as the senior side, a feeder team for the Parramatta Eels. ''We went out to the community with the idea for a new grandstand and we didn't get any feedback that we were doing anything untoward,'' he said. But one Holroyd councillor contacted by Fairfax Media, Greg Cummings, said he voted on the upgrade without any knowledge that it was tied to pokies.

''I can't recall any mention of poker machines. I just saw it as part of the club's offer to take down the unsafe wooden seating,'' he said. A 33-page document produced by the council - Ringrose Park, Plan of Management, 2012 - makes no mention of any link to poker machines in the club's offer to redevelop. Mr Brace said the 102 machines represented transfers from two clubs in Parramatta that had amalgamated with Wenty Leagues but since closed. He said there had in effect been a net loss of 21 machines in the community as a whole. A spokeswoman for Holroyd City Council said: ''Ringrose Park is a community-owned facility and upgrades of this facility are therefore of benefit to the community.'' The mayor, Ross Grove, said: ''I make no apologies for supporting Wenty Leagues, that gambling is a legal activity and I support the notion of residents spending their money within the local community.

''Reconstruction of the Ringrose grandstand is long overdue and I'd like to congratulate the club on their initiative in this area and throughout the local community in the form of local jobs, sponsorships, and CDSE [community development support expenditure] grants.'' A spokesman for gaming authority said a number of other groups used Ringrose Park. ''The application by Wentworthville Leagues Club was to transfer 102 gaming machines from The Tingha Club [3.85 kilometres away] to Wentworthville Leagues Club following amalgamation of the two clubs and closure of The Tingha Club,'' the spokesman said. ''As part of its application to transfer the gaming machines, Wentworthville Leagues Club offered to contribute $500,000 to the construction of a covered stand at the local sporting ground Ringrose Park, which is owned by Holroyd City Council.'' The NSW Hospitality Minister, George Souris, declined to comment.