Stop Winning Money In James Packer’s Casinos, You’re Making Him Sad
Life is tough if you're James Packer :'(
It’s been a busy few days for Australia’s favourite gambling tycoon/billionaire heir to a tyrannical media baron James Packer. Yesterday Fairfax papers ran a piece recounting Packer’s speech to shareholders at the Crown Resorts annual general meeting, in which he lamented the fact that people are staying away from his Melbourne and Perth casinos. You know times are tough when a company whose business model literally consists of “we let people push shiny buttons in exchange for their life savings” is somehow struggling to make money.
“Despite what some people will tell you, our business is not a licence to print money,” Packer said. The transcript of his speech doesn’t indicate whether or not he followed that statement with five minutes of doubled-over laughter, but considering his next words weren’t “I’m just fucking with you, our business is TOTALLY a licence to print money”, there’s a troubling possibility that he was serious.
Campaign starting early for pokies at Barangaroo? @MayneReport pic.twitter.com/3WtV0EAM7r
— Dean Cabena (@dcabena77) October 17, 2014
“Our VIP businesses are almost $100 million below the theoretical result less than four months into the financial year due to an adverse win rate or put simply, bad luck,” Packer told investors. An “adverse win rate”, in this context, means “people aren’t losing enough money in our casinos”, a sentiment that deserves not so much a tiny violin as a tiny string orchestra, perhaps played by a highly-trained set of exquisitely talented mice dressed in evening wear.
As he jokingly put it, “the punters are killing us”, which must be very distressing for a man who’s dedicated his life to ensuring it’s the other way round.
Just read James Packer is worried people are winning at his pokies. HANG IN THERE BUDDY, YOU CAN MAKE IT THROUGH THIS TOUGH TIME — John Johnsonson (@JohnJohnsonson) October 16, 2014
James Packer loses to high rollers.Flags droop at half mast.Muffled drums.A nation mourns. — Phillip Adams (@PhillipAdams_1) October 16, 2014
James also had some feelpinions on how much tax Crown has to pay, saying that “Crown is one of the largest taxpayers in the country” and is making “a massive contribution to governments and the public”.
He’s right, of course; it’s very nice of Crown to give some of the money it takes from Australian taxpayers back to Australian taxpayers. That way we can use it to help pay for the estimated $4.7 billion in social costs caused by problem gambling in Australia every year. It’s a win-win!
we can all go home now. RT @aus_politics: James Packer says governments are not giving him a fair go, http://t.co/17BjuS0uDx
— Jonathan Green (@GreenJ) October 16, 2014
He saved the best bit until towards the end, though: “It always amazes me that some so-called expert commentators view us as a social ill to be tolerated and eventually wound back or handicapped by extra taxes and charges, rather than as a responsible corporate citizen that is making an enormously positive contribution to countless Australian workers and small businesses.”
Okay, first off? James? Considering the Australian government estimates that up to half a million Australians either have or are likely to develop a problem gambling habit, maybe Crown Resorts is making a slightly less than “enormously positive contribution” to Australia’s social fabric.
Packer’s Crown Casino in Melbourne has 2,500 of the state’s 30,000 poker machines, which are no doubt sucking up a good portion of the $4.7 million Victorians are losing in them every day, and while Packer’s Barangaroo casino in Sydney was approved on proviso that it not include pokies in its operations, gambling experts reckon it’s only a matter of time before they get installed anyway and “ultimately come at the cost of the well-being of a large number of Sydneysiders”.
Speaking of Barangaroo, it was never meant to have a giant hotel-casino on it; the original design, courtesy of award-winning design firm Hill Thalis, featured oodles of public space and was lauded when it was approved by the state government in 2006. Since then, though, Packer, Lend Lease and supportive elements in state Parliament have steadily chipped away at the original design, eating up more and more public space in favour of a giant dick-shaped casino that most Sydneysiders won’t even be able to enter unless they flash enough money.
Also, if you live in Brisbane and have been pining for some sweet Crown lovin’, James has a $3 billion monstrosity planned for your city waterfront too! No doubt he’ll show the same tenderness and concern towards Brisbane’s waterfront — and Sydney’s oldest NRL team the South Sydney Rabbitohs, which he’s set to buy a stake in — as he has with Barangaroo so far.
We should lay off James, though, if for no other reason than he can punch people in the face and just not get arrested for it.
–
Feature image via 7 News Sydney/Twitter.