"It just ripped my guts out, what we were doing," he said, adding that many hospitality workers he knew were appalled by the work they did in gambling rooms. "We all feel it. Or anyone with a soul does anyway." Mr McGee said he remembered Mr Van Duinen well as a quiet and friendly presence in the club's gaming room. Joy and Mike Van Duinen, with their daughter, Tracey Filocamo, holding a photo of Gary. Credit:Janie Barrett He said that, by using the rewards system, the club was able to keep detailed real-time records of spending by big gamblers, such as Mr Van Duinen, on dedicated profile pages, which included personal details and a photo so staff could provide a more personalised service.

"We were meant to know them all [diamond reward members] by name and get them whatever they wanted," Mr McGee said. Gary Van Duinen died by suicide. Whenever these gamblers wanted something, they hit a button on their machine, which alerted staff and supervisors that a high priority player needed service. Mr McGee said players such as Mr Van Duinen would often be at the machines until dawn and would never need to pay for drinks because they had accrued so many reward points. He said it was clear to him that many of these players were addicted to the machines and distressed about their spending. "It's not a club. It is a casino, it is the northern beaches casino and nobody is talking about it," he said.

Another Dee Why RSL regular and friend of Mr Van Duinen, Josh Molle, said that after he became suicidal as a result of his gambling and alcohol addictions late last year, he was able to find help. Mr Molle said that, beforehand, he drank and gambled regularly with Mr Van Duinen. A fortnight before Mr Van Duinen died, Mr Molle visited him and tried to convince him to get help. When Mr Van Duinen failed to return home on June 1, his mother, Joy, went to the club to look for him in the club's gambling room. When she couldn't find him, she demanded to speak to a manager, and begged for her son to be banned from gambling there. She was told there was nothing they could do. Dee Why RSL, where Gary Van Duinen played the pokies for hours before he died. Credit:Janie Barrett

Police believe that Mr Van Duinen was already dead by that time, having caught a cab to bushland after a 13-hour gambling binge and taken his own life. Loading Mr Molle remembers that, as Mr Van Duinen's addiction spun out of control, he would sometimes gamble so fast he would lose hundreds of dollars in minutes. On bad nights, he would empty his bank accounts and turn to other gamblers for loans before walking home without a taxi fare. Mr Molle has since lodged a formal complaint about Dee Why RSL's practices with the state regulator, Liquor and Gaming NSW. "My friend had so many points that he hadn't paid for a drink there for a long time," Mr Molle wrote to Liquor and Gaming.

"He would also shout anyone with him drinks for as long as they were there. To me that's rewarding your gambling with alcohol. "The bigger issue with [the Dee Why RSL] though, is they would keep the drinks coming to him for up to 12 hours-plus at a time. My friend could hold his alcohol well and I can't remember seeing him looking drunk even though I knew how much he had been drinking. The club employees would have to know this, too, yet they would keep bringing him drink after drink. "Surely when you know someone has been there since early afternoon and is still there in the early hours of the morning 12 hours-plus later that it's time to cut them off. "I don't have any direct proof of this myself but I'm sure you could get a copy of his points/gambling history from the club, which would confirm everything I have said." Liquor and Gaming NSW has confirmed it is investigating a complaint and is looking at the club's gambling records.

In February last year, gambling reform advocates such as the Reverend Tim Costello and former senator Nick Xenophon warned about the impact of Dee Why RSL on the community, describing its Ambassador Rewards program to Fairfax Media as "immoral" and "predatory and parasitic". They noted that, to achieve diamond status, gamblers needed to turn over $150,000 in gaming every six months. When these concerns about the rewards program were raised, the club's chief executive, Grant Easterby told Fairfax Media, "Playing poker machines is a legitimate entertainment pursuit. For those people it causes an issue for, we look after them, but it is not our job to judge what a consumer pays for a product. If they enjoy it and they can afford it, that's their choice." This week, he told Fairfax Media that the club had no legal mechanism to curtail Mr Van Duinen's gambling, and that the club practised the statewide "self-exclusion" program and was part of ClubSAFE Premium, which he described as a harm-minimisation framework that is "recognised as world's best practice for responsible conduct of gaming". He said the Ambassador Rewards program was reviewed by NSW Liquor and Gaming in 2017 and that the agency expressed no concerns to the club following the review. According to the club the rewards program is available to all members, and to achieve diamond status a member would need to spend about $15,000 every six months.

Mr Easterby said that, while gamblers can buy drinks with reward points, customers are never offered free drinks. "I can also confirm that [Mr Van Duinen] frequently moved from his seat to the bar to buy drinks himself. At no stage did he appear intoxicated and, if our staff had observed that he was, they would have removed him from the club." Both Mr Van Duinen's wife and mother have told Fairfax Media that, even if the club had met its legal requirements, it failed in its moral duty to protect a member that staff knew to be in distress. A spokesman for Clubs NSW said this week that Dee Why RSL was an important and popular hub for the people of the northern beaches. "It provides employment for hundreds of locals and extensive support for a range of worthy charitable, community and sporting organisations through the ClubGRANTS scheme.