A History of Machine Gambling in the NSW Club Industry

ABSTRACT

This article documents a history of the NSW club industry, with particular emphasis on its evolution to a major contemporary operator of gaming machines at state, national and international levels. It argues that three conditions of club registration-their not-for-profit status, membership requirements, and social benefit objectives-have been instrumental for clubs in gaining and maintaining dominant rights to machine gambling in NSW. These three features of clubs traditionally have underpinned their legitimacy as major providers of machine gambling, reflecting prevailing government policy that linked legalised gambling to social benefit. However, the substantial revenues that accrued from machine gambling, amidst an absence of competition, fuelled an expansion of the club sector that was neither predicted nor planned, with many clubs growing dramatically in assets, membership and facilities. The original club goals of promoting and pursuing the social purpose and community benefit for which they were established became superseded by an emphasis on expansion, market share, and profits. More recently, increased competition for the gambling dollar, reflecting a shift in government policy towards economically driven stimulation and expansion of commercial gambling, has further entrenched the commercialisation of clubs in their machine gambling operations, subordinating their social agenda to economic interests. This change in focus by club management has diminished the social contract that exists for clubs to operate gambling for community benefit, the very basis of the clubs' legitimacy as major providers of machine gambling. Indeed, the implicit assumption that social benefit was built into club machine gambling has allowed the clubs to exploit their position of market dominance in a way that exacerbates the negative social impacts of their core product.     

Is group selection necessary? An alternative interpretation of homogeneous Middleman groups: Comments on Janet Landa’s paper

This article critiques the efforts by Janet Landa, David Sloan Wilson and others to use group selection paradigms to explain the success of homogenous middlemen groups (HMGs). It argues that group selection theory cannot explain the conflicts of interests that arise within HMGs or why they dissolve in certain occasions. Landa’s earlier explanations, which stressed the combination of genetic (kinship) and social bonds in the creation of trust and cooperation in the extension of credit and the creation of local public goods, better predicts both the strength and weaknesses of HMGs.      

Clubs and Hallmark Events

ABSTRACT

In Australia, clubs have long been viewed by some sections of the hospitality industry as the “poor cousins” of the more glamorous end of the market, such as four- and five-star hotels and resorts. Despite this perception, clubs are continuing to experience growth both in terms of membership and revenues collected and many play significant roles within the communities in which they operate. With regard to special events, much of the economic and social impact work published to date has focused upon the impact of such events in terms of accommodation and restaurant use, as well as visitor numbers and economic multipliers. The club industry in Australia, and in New South Wales (NSW) in particular, is a vibrant and thriving industry, but little work has been carried out to quantify the impact upon clubs of “outside” or external special events. Using in-depth interviews and discussions with marketing staff within two clubs in NSW (one rural and one metropolitan), this article examines their relationships to hallmark events that were conducted within each club's region. Analysis is made of the clubs' involvement with these events and the extent to which they were aggressively proactive in acquiring linkages to the event in question.     

Consumption externalities, rental markets and purchase clubs

Summary. A premise of general equilibrium theory is that private goods are rival. Nevertheless, many private goods are shared, e.g., through borrowing, through co-ownership, or simply because one persons consumption affects another persons wellbeing. I analyze consumption externalities from the perspective of club theory, and argue that, provided consumption externalities are limited in scope, they can be internalized through membership fees to groups. Two important applications are to rental markets and purchase clubs, in which members share the goods that they have individually purchased.Received: 2 June 2003, Revised: 8 March 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D11, D62.This paper was supported by the U.C., Berkeley Committee on Research, and the Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen. I am grateful to Birgit Grodal for her collaboration on the theory that underlies this paper, and for her helpful and motivating comments about these particular extensions. I also thank Hal Varian, Doug Lichtman, Steve Goldman, Karl Vind, anonymous referees, and members of the Berkeley Microeconomics Seminar for discussion.     

What Drives European Football Clubs’ Stock Returns and Volatility?

The article studies the main determinants of European football clubs’ stock returns and volatility. A panel-data analysis of a sample of 24 European football clubs was conducted to test the influence of several variables, based on a matrix of internal/external and real/financial dimensions, on both stock returns and their volatility. The results show that clubs’ stock returns are influenced by the real and financial context and by a set of internal variables such as profit considered as a reflection of accounting discipline, capitalization as an indicator of size and stadium attendance as a proxy indicator of reputation. The volatility of stock returns seems particularly vulnerable to the overall instability on stock markets and dependent on clubs’ profit and net players’ transfers and, to a lesser extent, on sporting outcomes.     

Is the public sector too large in an economy with club goods? A case when consumers differ in both tastes and incomes

In an archetypal economy with a single private good and a single shared good, the latter represents the public sector. With the shared good a club good, we ask if second-best (SB) provision of it is too small, as usually claimed for pure public goods. When consumers differ only in exogenous incomes, if the club good is a superior good in a single-club economy, overprovision in the SB occurs if club good demand is convex in income. We show this can extend to an economy where consumers differ in both tastes and incomes, depending on the covariances between consumers' incomes and their relative strength of preference for the club and private goods, and the covariances between incomes and taste parameters.     

Proposed framework for the management of resorts Mini Clubs: an ambidextrous approach

ABSTRACT

Drawing on ambidextrous approaches to management, this study has found that Mini Clubs, whilst predominantly adopting an exploitative approach, need to redesign their services to enhance children’s experiences but also to contribute to the resorts’ competitive edge. The study suggests that a two-step strategy needs to be implemented by leisure organisations, namely an increased complexity strategy and an increased divergence strategy, which would make a strategic shift to a more exploratory approach and therefore ambidextrous management and marketing practices. Management initiatives are proposed and discussed in relation to key global trends influencing the leisure and hospitality sector. The paper represents the first endeavour to examine the management of resort Mini Clubs, proposes to fill a gap in the literature aimed to recognise the increasing role of children activities in the leisure and hospitality sector, and contributes to the study of ambidextrous management in leisure research.     

‘The Trouble with Today's Young Ones…’

ABSTRACT

This article examines the challenges for Australian clubs in attracting and keeping the younger demographic. Using a case study approach written by a participant observer, and Waterman, Peters, and Phillips' Seven-S Framework, the issues and difficulties faced by one NSW coastal club are examined as they trialled two “youth market” specific products aimed at the under-18 segment. After less than 12 months, both products were cancelled and a decision was made by the board of directors to no longer target the “difficult” youth market. In examining the challenges faced by this club, it was found that the “troublesome youth” became a convenient scapegoat for the real contributors to the under-18's product failures. This article found that, while the initial strategy to target the youth market was sound, there was a lack of support from the other internal factors of structure, systems, skills, style, staff, and superordinate goals that contributed to the cancellation and thus failure of these youth-oriented products. It is useful to examine these failures from a strategic viewpoint as a means for other clubs to become more familiar with the pitfalls of targeting the youth market from the outset, instead of through the lens of hindsight.     

A Thematic Review of Australia's Club Management Magazine

ABSTRACT

This analysis of articles from 1993 to 2003 in Australia's premier club management trade magazine, Club Management in Australia (CMA), the publication of the Club Managers' Association Australia (CMAA), highlights a number of recurring key themes. These are: taxation legislation; employment relations and human resources; gambling, alcohol, smoking, and related social issues; club expansion, innovation and growth; and contribution to the community. This article analyses these themes and discusses the key forces driving change in these areas, while also identifying the viewpoints of club managers. It is concluded that empirical academic research into these themes and the issues pertaining to them is needed. This is especially true of gambling, smoking, and social issues, the effectiveness of new gambling and club-related legislation, and the contribution of clubs to the community. Further research will be required to test the validity of several of the arguments put forward by the CMAA in the articles reviewed.     

Laws of scarcity for a finite game - exact bounds on estimations

Summary. A law of scarcity is that scarceness is rewarded. We demonstrate laws of scarcity for cores and approximate cores of games. Furthermore, we show that equal treatment core payoff vectors satisfy a condition of cyclic monotonicity. Our results are developed for parameterized collections of games and exact bounds on the maximum possible deviation of approximate core payoff vectors from satisfying a law of scarcity are stated in terms of the parameters describing the games. We note that the parameters can, in principle, be estimated.Received: 21 November 2002, Revised: 7 October 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: C71, C78, D41. Correspondence to: Myrna WoodersThis research was initiated in 1994 when the first author was in the IDEA Ph.D. Program of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Support by the IBM Fund Award, the Latané Fund, the University of North Carolina Research Council, and the Warwick Centre for Public Economics is acknowledged. The second author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Direccio General dUniversitats of Catalonia, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Department of Economics of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. This article is dedicated to Marcel (Ket) Richter, a distinguished researcher and a wonderful teacher and mentor to his students. We are delighted to contribute our paper to this special issue of Economic Theory in his honor.