The 2006 year has seen a concerted effort on many
fronts by purchasers and other hotel professionals to limit and see a
reduction in the value of poker machine entitlements, for which they have
been successful. In some cases placing misleading and deceptive
advertisements in the Sydney Morning Herald based on possible changes to the
trading of the entitlements.
Many of the larger licensing firms have also been involved in activities to
control the sale of poker machine entitlements to often the ‘larger
hoteliers’ at the cost of the poker machine entitlement seller.
There have been many here-say rumors flooding the market to reduce the value
of poker machine entitlements and in particular the supposive amalgamation
of the hotel and registered club entitlement market, which would allow
registered clubs to sell entitlements to the hotel sector. This rumor
started back as far as 2004 and has not come to anything to date and is
questionable if it would come to anything in the future due to the massive
windfall it would be to the club industry and the dam age it will do to the
sale price of poker machine entitlements from hotel to hotel.
As far as the Hotel industry is concerned many operators who took advantage
of extending their SIA1 approvals from four additional machines to ten
additional machines under the licence total threshold have not re-entered
the market to purchase entitlements to activate the increased threshold
holdings, however it is expected to have a positive impact on price in the
future.
Additionally supply has also softened due to the weaker sale prices as a
result of the concerted efforts by professional sectors to manipulate and
dominate the market, in order to satisfy short term goals.
Bligh Williams
