AUTHOR: Jerry "Jet" Whittaker
TITLE: Poker machine sell off threatens hoteliers 
DATE: 3:49 PM
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BODY:
<p class="mobile-post">It's claimed hotel owners in country areas are being stripped of their
livelihoods as poker machine entitlements are sold off by licensees. An
increasing number of entitlements are being sold by licensees in the bush
for as much as $100,000 per machine. A court case in 2001 set a precedent
awarding entitlements to licensees, meaning if they're sold, the value of
the Hotel will decrease dramatically if the Hotel lease was drafted prior to
that case. Fifty regional hotels have been shut down since then and another
600 are under threat. Greg Evans, owner of the Railway Hotel in Temora in
the NSW Riverina, says his licensee has already sold the entitlements for
three machines and has placed the other nine on the market. He says the pub
was valued at $450,000 when he and his brother Greg bought it in 1984 and
that today, without poker machine revenue, it's worth about $200,000. The
Democrats' Arthur Chesterfield Evans says the state government should be
reviewing every sale on a case-by-case basis to prevent this sort of thing
happening. He says the Department of Gaming and Racing simply bowed to
pressure form the Australian Hotels Association, which said the process of
reviewing every case would be too complex.</p>
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