Woolworths Poker Machines

Woolworths is the largest owner of pokie machines in Australia. Woolworths is set to cut and run from its poker machine business, announcing plans to combine its drinks and gambling arms into a separate venture which it will offload.

This list of Woolworths Limited companies is a compilation of the divisions, chains, and brands of Woolworths Group, a major Australian company with extensive retail interest throughout Australia and New Zealand. It is the second-largest company in Australia by revenue, after Perth-based retail-focused conglomerate Wesfarmers, and the largest food retailer in Australia,^[1] as well as the second largest in New Zealand.^[2] Woolworths Limited is the largest takeaway liquor retailer^[3] and the largest hotel and gaming poker machine operator in Australia.^[3] It was the 19th largest retailer in the world in 2008.^[4]

The Woolworths Limited group is currently divided into four business divisions; Australian Food, New Zealand Food, Endeavour Group & Portfolio.

Australian Food[edit]

Supermarkets[edit]

• Woolworths Supermarkets – The company's premier supermarket chain, which operates in every Australian state and territory. The supermarkets are often colloquially known as 'Woolies' and have used the slogan 'The Fresh Food People' since 1987.
• Woolworths Online – An online supermarket allowing customers to order groceries and have them delivered to their front door. The groceries are packed in special warehouses and stores located around the country.^[5]
• Woolworths Metro - Inner-urban small format supermarkers located in the key metropolitan areas selling a range of pre-prepared meals & fresh food for the 'time poor' customer.

Everyday Rewards[edit]

Loyalty program offering customers fuel saving offers, and Money Off your shop. As of February 2010, there were 4.6 million Everyday Rewards cards registered, with 2.1 million linked with Qantas Frequent Flyer memberships.^[6]

Woolworth Financial Services & Insurance[edit]

• Woolworths Insurance
• Woolworths Credit Cards

New Zealand Food[edit]

• Countdown – Woolworth NZ's flagship supermarket chain – 184 full-service discount supermarkets, operating across the North and South Islands of New Zealand.
• SuperValue – franchised convenience supermarket
• Freshchoice – franchised full-service supermarket
• Woolworths Home Shopping^[7]

Endeavour Group[edit]

Endeavour Group is a joint venture with the Bruce Mathieson Group containing a range of liquor & hospitality assets. Woolworths Group currently holds an 85.4% stake in the Endeavour Group although there are plans to divest.^[8]

• Beer Wine Spirits (BWS) – Liquor stores mostly co-located with the company's supermarkets.
• Cellarmasters – Online wine business; Woolworths Limited bought them in 2011 and their head office is now in Surry Hills.^[9]
• Dan Murphy's – Large liquor barns often referred to as Liquor Supermarkets.
• Langton's – Wine auctioneers and retailers
• Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group^[10] – Hotel and poker machine operator. Involvement in the poker machine industry, and has led to extensive ongoing boycott campaigns^[11] by GetUp!! and others.

Portfolio[edit]

• Big W – Discount department store chain, which sell a wide range of general merchandise.
• Adore Beauty - An online cosmetics retailer based in Melbourne, Australia.

Former chains and brands[edit]

Australia[edit]

• Woolworths Food Fair – The name given to the company's growing food-retailing interests in the 1960s to differentiate them from the variety-based stores. They were all rebranded to Flemings Supermarket
• Woolworths Variety – The name given to the company's traditional variety stores to differentiate them from the company's food-retailing interests, when the decision was made to use the original Woolworths name for the company's food stores and supermarkets instead of its variety stores. These variety stores were progressively divested as Woolworths focused on food retailing and developed large-scale discount department stores.
• Woolworths Family Centre – Woolworths opened its first hypermarket at Booval near Ipswich, Queensland in November 1969 under the Big W name. A second hypermarket was opened in 1970 in Indooroopilly, Brisbane, under the Woolworths Family Centre name. The early popularity of these stores led to Woolworths establishing hypermarkets around Australia using the Woolworths Family Centre name. However the concept failed to perform, and the hypermarkets were re-established as separated Woolworths supermarkets and Big W discount department stores in the late 1970s to early 1980s.
• Woolworths Homemakers - Name given to company's homemaker stores that sold furniture, electrical appliances, TV's and Stereos, Whitegoods, outdoor furniture, floorcoverings and soft furnishings these stores had all closed by the mid 1980s
• Brisbane Cash & Carry (BCC) - Pioneering supermarket chain in Queensland bought by Woolworths in the 1950s but continued to trade under the BCC name well into the 1960s.
• Crazy Prices – A variety store chain that sold discounted merchandise. These stores were sold to (and formed part of) rival Go-Lo in 2001, although the last store with Crazy Prices branding didn't close until 2005 in Port Macquarie. Its slogan was 'The Bargains are Better'.
• Rockmans – Women's clothing retailer acquired by the group in 1960 and was a major operating division until its sale in 2000.
• Woolworths Plus Petrol – The original name of the petrol sites owned by Woolworths before the joint venture with Caltex.
• Flemings – Group of four supermarkets located in Sydney and the Central Coast (the remnants of a chain purchased in the 1960s). All have since closed or rebranded to Woolworths or Woolworths Metro, with the last remaining Flemings located at Jannali closed in May 2020.
• Woolworths Liquor – Liquor department of Woolworths supermarket stores. They were not located in South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania, as State law there prohibited liquor sales at supermarkets and were formerly known as 'Mac's Liquor'. In 2012, 'Woolworths Liquor' were rebranded as BWS.
• Philip Leong - An Independent chain of 3 supermarkets that operated in the Townsville region of Northern Queensland. Philip Leong was bought out by Woolworths in April 1981 but continued to operate under Philip Leong branding until the early 2000s when the chain was rebranded as Woolworths.
• Roelf Vos and Purity supermarkets – Two Tasmanian supermarkets located in the north and south respectively. Bought out by Woolworths (Purity in 1981 and Roelf Vos in 1982) however they continued to trade under these names until being rebranded as Woolworths in 2000. The stores adopted the standard Woolworths look and feel of their mainland counterparts but with the 'Purity' or 'Roelf Vos' text in the logo in place of Woolworths.
• Peanuts – A short lived discount store operated in Tasmania. Woolworths answer to local discount store Chickenfeed.
• Dick Smith – Sold to Anchorage Capital Partners on 27 September 2012
• Dick Smith Powerhouse – Larger Dick Smith stores with a focus on consumer entertainment products. (Sold to Anchorage Capital Partners on 27 September 2012, as part of the Dick Smith chain of stores.)
• Tandy – Tandy brand is now phased out, and have become smaller Dick Smith stores.
• Masters Home Improvement – In 2009, Woolworths announced a joint venture with US home improvement retailer Lowe's to enter the home improvement market.^[12] Based on documents submitted to the government, Woolworths' hardware chain will be named Masters.^[13] This was confirmed on 2 May 2011.^[14] The first store was located in Braybrook, Victoria and opened in September 2011.^[15] As of June 2014, 49 Masters stores are operational in Australia. On 24 August 2016, Woolworths announced that all Masters stores would close on or before 11 December 2016.^[16]
• Safeway – In 1985 Woolworths Limited acquired Safeway and used it as the trading name for Woolworths supermarkets in Victoria. In August 2008, Woolworths announced it would be rebranding these stores as Woolworths. As of 2015, nearly all of the Safeway stores in Victoria have been rebranded as 'Woolworths'.
• Food For Less – Discount supermarket chain located in Queensland and New South Wales. All have closed or were rebranded to Woolworths.
• Thomas Dux Grocer – Upmarket supermarket / deli chain launched in 2008 and ceased trading in 2017.
• Macro Wholefoods Market – Organic food and produce chain, purchased in 2009 and due to be rebranded to Thomas Dux Grocer. The Macro Wholefoods branded organic products (100 line items) will be sold through Woolworths Supermarkets and Thomas Dux Grocer.

New Zealand[edit]

• Dick Smith Electronics – sell a wide range of hobby electronic products and consumer goods such as computer products. (Now owned by Anchorage Capital Partners as part of the Dick Smith chain of stores.)
• Dick Smith Powerhouse – Large stores with a focus on consumer entertainment products. (Also included in sale to Anchorage Capital Partners)]
• Foodtown – 20 full-service supermarkets, operating in Auckland, Hamilton, and Tauranga – all stores rebranding to Countdown by late 2012.
• Woolworths @ Gull – 22 Woolworths Quickstop and Woolworths Micro convenience supermarkets, operating in the North Island on Gull Petroleum fuel sites. All stores have later been purchased by Night 'n Day Foodstores Limited to become Night 'n Day@Gull stores.

India[edit]

• Croma/Tata Group Venture – In 2006 Woolworths and the Tata Group of India announced an electronics retailing venture on the subcontinent. Due to the legal framework, foreign companies are prevented from operating retail businesses in India. Due to this, Woolworths will act as a wholesaler to the Tata Group. The stores are based on the Dick Smith Powerhouse format.

Tata Group ends deal with Woolworths. According to the report in The Economic Times of India, Woolworths was surprised that the deal had a time limit on it.^[17] Tata Group and Woolworths have since 'ironed out differences' and are continuing in business together according to the Economic Times of India.^[18]

References[edit]

1. ^'Woolworths Limited Group'. IRIS Tasmania. Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources, State of Tasmania. 9 November 2007. Archived from the original on 23 April 2007. Retrieved 23 November 2007. The company is Australia's largest food retailer and second largest private employer, with 13 million customers each week.
2. ^NZPA (26 October 2007). 'Commission: Red Shed takeover would create a 'pure duopoly''. The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on 30 October 2014. Retrieved 23 November 2006. Commerce Commission lawyer Stephen Kos told the court the market essentially consisted of a single acknowledged price leader and other price followers. 'The effect of the merger would be a creation of a pure duopoly.' ... Now Woolworths and Foodstuffs had roughly equal market shares, Kos said.
3. ^ ^abMoore, Ali (5 March 2006). 'Man of the Moment (Interview with Woolworths' boss Roger Corbett)'. Business Sunday. Ninemsn. Archived from the original on 11 December 2008. Retrieved 23 November 2007. This is a very personal question but it is probably going to be the last chance we get to speak to with you on Business Sunday. You are now the biggest pokies operator, the biggest pub owner, the biggest liquor retailer in Australia.
4. ^'Woolies makes top 25 global retailer list'. News.com.au. 14 January 2008. Retrieved 11 July 2010.
5. ^'Woolworths online'. 11 June 2010. Archived from the original on 24 October 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
6. ^'Woolworths Limited – Half Year Presentation HY10'. 28 January 2010. Retrieved 23 March 2010.
7. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 11 June 2003. Retrieved 28 January 2013.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link),
8. ^[https://www.theshout.com.au/news/off-premise-news/endeavour-group-formation-complete-plans-begin-for-demerger/
9. ^Woolies buys Cellmasters, posts proit riseABC News 25 February 2011
10. ^'Home'. ALH Group. Retrieved 11 July 2010.
11. ^[1]
12. ^http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/14/144044/asx/753818.pdf
13. ^'Woolies out to nail hardware'. The Sydney Morning Herald. 7 April 2010.
14. ^'Building a master brand'. Marketing Magazine. 27 June 2012. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
15. ^http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTUzMzB8Q2hpbGRJRD0tMXxUeXBlPTM=&t=1
16. ^'Woolworths Update on Home Improvement Exit - Woolworths Limited'. www.woolworthslimited.com.au. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
17. ^Collin, Kruger (25 October 2011). 'Blow for Woolies as Tata ends Indian venture'. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
18. ^Kala Vijayraghavan (13 December 2011). 'FDI in retail: Tatas, Woolworths leave dispute behind, renew agreement'. Mumbai, India. Retrieved 18 December 2017.

External links[edit]

Woolworths is reported to be instructing staff to ply gamblers with food and drink and to keep dossiers on the private lives. And while Woolworths has been singled out for systematically requiring these kind of practices from their staff, the company is hardly alone in putting profits ahead of gambler’s well-being.

Poker-machine operators have good reason to treat their customers like this. Their primary goal is to take as much money from their customers as possible, and with poker machines, this means easing gamblers “into the zone”.

Read more: FactCheck: are 'around 5,000 jobs' at risk if pokies are removed from pubs and clubs in Tasmania?

“The zone” is the term that frequent poker-machine gamblers often use to describe the altered state they enter into when gambling on pokies. The experience of entering the zone - and even the term itself - has been independently described by gamblers in studies in Australia and the United States.

Gamblers describe it as an out-of-body experience. As one gambler put it:

You aren’t really there, you’re with the machine and that’s all you’re with.

Or in the words of another gambler:

I feel connected to the machine when I play, like it’s an extension of me, as if physically you couldn’t separate me from the machine.

But the zone is also an expensive state to access. Gambling on pokies costs - on average - around A$120 per hour, or up to A$1,200 per hour if machines are played to their maximum capacity.

It’s when their customers are in the zone that poker-machine venues are at their most profitable.

Easing gamblers into ‘the zone’

Poker-machines are specifically engineered to ease people into the zone and to keep them there, according to emerging evidence. But in order for people to enter the zone, people must play the machines, and preferably play uninterrupted. This is where the tactics of venues like Woolworths loom large.

Venues use a wide range of tactics to get gamblers in through the door and in front of machines.

First of all, poker-machine venues are located in convenient locations, near to high traffic transport routes, shopping centres and the like. This facilitates frequent visits, and venues try to decrease the distance from your home to the closest poker-machine venue.

For the same reasons, gambling venues are open very long hours. Operators want poker machines to be available should you need somewhere to go at 3am.

Indeed, poker-machine operators also go to extraordinary lengths to make their venues feel comfortable and welcoming. Operators have known for decades that the venue environment is crucial to facilitate profitable gambling. A cottage industry of research has sprung up in recent years to better help casino managers understand what sort of venues will keep gamblers feeling at ease.

Woolworths Poker Machines Games

Read more: 'No pokies' Xenophon goes for 'some pokies', but does his gambling policy go far enough?

For example, a 2011 study of pokie venue gamblers in Australia found there were certain gambler-friendly qualities of the venue which could be improved on to attract more gamblers. These included free refreshments; attentive customer service; safety and security; loyalty programs; and comfortable seating.

Casino design manuals go into great detail about how the manipulation of casino atmospheres can encourage people to stay and play. These manuals state that lighting should be steady and even, and should be angled away from gamblers faces.

Smells are said to affect gamblers’ decisions to continue gambling or leave, and so venues regulate them. Special attention is given to keeping out bad odours. In casinos, even architectural decisions such as ceiling height are calibrated to maximise gamblers’ “cognitive satisfaction”.

Woolworths Poker Machines Machine

Ambient music shouldn’t be too loud or too soft, and should be deflected, reverberating off walls rather than directed into gamblers faces. And music coming from the poker machines themselves shouldn’t be too jarring lest it distract the gambler, or attract too much attention to a win.

All these amount to providing what one study has termed “social accessibility”, the degree to which venues provide safe, friendly and easy places to visit - and to stay. The relationship with venue staff is central to this, as one problem gambler from the same study put it, “[In] all my preferred venues they [the staff] know me quite well”. It is this social accessibility that appears to be being manipulated by unscrupulous operators.

On a grander scale, US casinos use big data to devise tailored marketing strategies which will pull people back in. Recent court findings have shown that US casino giant Caeser’s values its customer database at more than US$1 billion dollars.

While Australian pubs and clubs are not allowed to promote poker machines directly, they are able to cross-promote other events that might serve as vehicles to bring patrons into the venue, and thus facilitate a gambling session.

Venues also offer a place where children are encouraged to come and play. Not only does this facilitate the gambling of their parents and carers, but hearing or seeing adults gamble may serve to normalise the practice for the next generation. In particular, new research has found that marketing, especially of family-friendly events, is influential in shaping children’s and adults’ perceptions of gambling venues and products and thereby increase the likelihood that children will gamble when they grow up.

When good hospitality becomes harmful

All of these measures are designed to make gamblers as comfortable and relaxed in venues as possible. So why is this a problem?

In short, poker machines are highly addictive and cause a great deal of harm. Subtle manipulation of gambling venues are tested and tweaked by operators to maximise the chance that someone will come in, play the poker machines, and keep on playing.

What may look like good hospitality, is in effect a subtle - or in the case of Woolworths not so subtle - attempt to keep people gambling after the point at which they would otherwise have stopped.

Woolworths Poker Machines Real Money

The Woolworths revelations demonstrate once again that poker-machine venues can’t be trusted to self-regulate in the best interests of their patrons.

Industry practices such as codes of conduct - and the “responsible gambling” mantra - are simply inadequate when venues have a business model reliant on harmful levels of gambling.