The lure of a trip to Las Vegas on a poker machine manufacturer’s dime prompted the directors of a Sydney club to quietly update their travel policy to allow for their partners to travel with them and personal holidays to be added at members’ expense.
Hornsby RSL directors changed their travel policy just weeks ahead of the 2022 G2E gaming conference in Las Vegas, which two board members attended at the invitation of gaming machine manufacturer Konami in return for buying eight poker machines.
The G2E conference is a showcase of new gaming products held annually at The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas.Credit: Istock
It came into effect again the following year when another manufacturer, Aristocrat, paid for two directors to travel to Vegas and Nashville, with both trips costing the club more than $80,000, including partners’ airfares, personal travel extensions and fringe benefits tax for partner travel.
The revelations are contained in a motion to remove the directors of Hornsby RSL from office, which will be submitted by the club’s former chief executive, Mario Machado, at its annual meeting on Sunday. Directors will use the same forum to ask their 34,000 members to endorse the policy, saying the trips are a good use of member funds.
Machado, who resigned in August, said in a statement of reasons attached to his motion that the directors had given themselves the benefit without seeking the approval of members, and he no longer had faith in them to act in the club’s best interests.
“Having directors and their partners partake in these trips, fully paid for by the club, including trip extensions to destinations that have nothing to do with the purpose of running a registered club, does not offer any benefit to members or the club,” Machado wrote.
“I ask that members … consider if the current board, in introducing these ‘overseas travel policies’, have acted in the best interests of the club or themselves.”
Gaming machine manufacturers have long offered promotions to club directors and management to encourage them to upgrade their poker machines. The NSW government amended the law in 1993 to ban directors from accepting such trips unless they had an educational purpose, after which there was an explosion in the number of “study trips”.
Liquor and Gaming NSW committed in March last year to examine a number of those study trips to determine whether they fell within the law, following their exposure by the Herald. A spokeswoman said the agency continued to examine whether a range of practices by club staff fell within the law, including gaming machine manufacturer promotions offering free travel to club executives.
