SUPERMARKET giant Woolworths is earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year from some of the country's poorest regions because of the concentration of its poker machines in low-income areas.

The first study of the locations of pubs and clubs owned by Woolworths shows it is making more than $300 million a year in net revenue from pokies in venues in seven Victorian local government areas with low average incomes.

''The fact is they have a lot of machines in areas which by anyone's standards are disadvantaged,'' the author of the report, Monash University gambling expert Charles Livingstone said.

''We are not talking about an accidental distribution. There seems to be careful planning … Woolworths is a massive Australian company which prides itself on being socially responsible, and this doesn't sit well with that.''