AFL clubs that own pokies venues spent a record $35 million on the community last financial year - but a damning analysis shows most of the cash went back into the football clubs and their gaming venues.
In the most extreme case, premiers Geelong appears to have used a new gambling law loophole to claim the entire costs of running the football club as a community good.
In its community benefit statement lodged last week with the gambling regulator, the Cats said they spent $21.3 million on the community. Collingwood was the next most generous, with a community contribution of $3.4 million from three venues.
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Under the law, pokies venues run by clubs - including AFL clubs and RSLs - must show how they are spending at least 8.3 per cent of their revenue to benefit the community. If they cannot prove this spending, they are taxed 8.3 per cent of revenues.
But despite the large community benefit claimed, Geelong contributed nothing under the 12 philanthropic categories of community benefit, which include the relief of poverty, educational scholarships and the protection of the environment.
Instead, the Cats' statement shows $2.1 million for maintaining and providing its facilities, and $18 million for ''operating costs''. Thanks to a little-known footnote in a ruling by Gaming Minister Tony Robinson, for the first time, this year clubs can claim all payments to players and officials as part of the operating costs of their pokies venue. The club gave a statement to The Sunday Age saying its community benefit declaration met with the requirements of the legislation.
But Dr Charles Livingstone, a senior lecturer at Monash University's department of health social science, said it appeared Geelong had claimed almost all of its costs of running the football club as a community benefit. While legal, it went against the spirit of the regulation.
''A footy club that exists to pay large amounts of money to talented football players is not really a community benefit,'' he said.
But the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation disagreed. Executive commissioner Peter Cohen told The Sunday Age the regulations ensured a club operated to genuinely benefit its members. ''If the clubs are using their gaming machines revenues to support the activity of the football club as a community benefit, then that is what the members would wish them to do.''
Dr Livingstone's analysis shows that of the $35 million claimed by AFL clubs as a community benefit, $29 million was claimed as operating costs. Under the ''Class A'' categories, which define genuine charitable purposes, the clubs gave $6.2 million of their profits.
But Dr Livingstone found that even under Class A, the clubs were claiming costs of running the sport, such as the $747,789 for Visy Park Stadium declared by Carlton as a community benefit.
Other clubs claimed their licence fees to the AFL. The Western Bulldogs claimed Brad Johnson's 300-game portrait and signed football guernseys.
After The Sunday Age exposed last year's premiers for paying themselves more than $2 million as a community benefit, the Hawthorn Football Club this year put $596,280 into the category of ''philanthropic or benevolent purpose''.
The money went to community programs, camps, multicultural programs, charities and the RSL, among other things, a spokesman said.
The Hawks also donated $27,390 for Black Saturday survivors under the category of disaster relief. It was one of only a handful of clubs to do so.
Dr Livingstone said some of the clubs, especially Essendon and the Bulldogs, had made significant contributions to the broader community.
Rebecca Harrison, spokeswoman for Mr Robinson, said the new guidelines clarified that community benefits include a range of matters, including philanthropy in the broader community and for individual clubs.
When asked whether the minister would prefer football clubs to better balance the money they give to the broader community and to the club, Ms Harrison did not respond.
