A whistleblower who worked at a Woolworths-owned pub has described how staff meetings were held to discuss how to encourage a grieving woman nicknamed “Queen Bee” by management to put her inheritance into poker machines after the loss of her parents.

The woman had previously worked in a professional job, but began to gamble heavily while on workers compensation after the death of her parents, the staff members said.

The allegation is one of several made by two staff members who worked at different pubs owned by Woolworths pub subsidiary, ALH.

“We basically had a staff meeting straight out saying … ‘When she comes in, day or night or whatever, just treat her like Queen Bee.’ Like she will get this, that, free drinks, free food. They kept her there. If the music was not to her liking, in the gaming room, bang bang bang. We would go there and change the music back to hers,” one of the woman told a staff member of the anti-pokies campaigner and MP Andrew Wilkie in video-recorded interviews.

“Anything she said, complained about, or wanted, she got. It was always to her liking, always. And even if she was wrong, she was right.