An anti-gambling campaigner who has joined 14 New South Wales clubs to access their annual reports claims registered clubs are exaggerating the benefits they provide to community groups.

With the Federal Government considering the Productivity Commission’s report into gambling, the clubs have argued that any reforms to poker machine laws could impact on their ability to fund charities, sporting clubs and other non-profit organisations.

But Paul Bendat has told ABC1′s Lateline that his research shows clubs are not as generous as they make out.

“I found that the donations weren’t quite as magnanimous as first represented,” Mr Bendat said.

“As a general rule of thumb they seem to spend three to four to five times more on marketing than they do on donations back into the community.

“That says to me that spruiking themselves is actually more important than doing something for the community.”

Anthony Ball, the CEO of Clubs Australia, has told Lateline that clubs have a huge impact on the community.

“Clubs give to the community, and we know that because of what clubs do in the suburbs and townships around New South Wales and Australia,” Mr Ball said.

“We also know it because IPART (The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal) has measured it very recently at $811 million a year.”

The IPART report was based on figures provided by the clubs themselves in 2007.

Of that $811 million, $676 million is made up of goods and services provided to club patrons such as discounted food and drink, sporting facilities and room hire.

Another $44 million is calculated as the value of volunteer hours provided by club members and staff.

Clubs NSW say they also directly donated $91 million to charities and sporting groups that year.

Clubs Australia have extrapolated that $811 million to provide a national figure of $1.2 billion.

Last month, the then Clubs Australia CEO David Costello said “It is the not-for-profit status of clubs that underpins the enormous social work they do which measures $1.2 billion annually.”

Paul Bendat has criticised the clubs for using the term “social work”.

“The phrase is a misnomer. What the vast amount of this social contribution is the discounts they give on snooker tables, schooners of beer, function rooms – it’s not real money that goes back into the community,” he said.

But Anthony Ball from Clubs Australia maintains that “social work” is an accurate term.

“One of the great strengths of clubs is the ability to provide affordable food and beverage facilities out in the suburbs and towns. If you lived in Dubbo, if you lived in Lightning Ridge you can only to go to the club – they don’t have the options of the people of inner-Sydney, so absolutely it is,” he said.

Betty Con Walker, a former senior NSW Treasury official who has written about the clubs in her book Casino Clubs NSW, says the club’s claims need more scrutiny.

She says that once you take out the tax breaks and in-kind donations, clubs in NSW donate around one per cent of the $3.3 billion they make from poker machines each year.

“Once you take all that into account you’re left with at best $30 million of cash contributions to the community at large,” Ms Walker said.

But charities such as Youth Off The Streets (YOTS) say these kind of donations make a big difference to what they do.

Father Chris Riley of YOTS told Lateline “We wouldn’t have been in Aceh, we wouldn’t have set up one of our most successful programs, if it hadn’t been for clubs who instantly came and gave us a couple of hundred thousand to kick us off.”

Betty Con Walker argues the clubs receive more money in tax breaks than they return to charity.

“When you look at the government’s own budget papers in the current financial year they have costed the tax concession to the club industry at $600 million in this financial year alone,” she said.

“If clubs were paying the same tax rates as hotels, the government would have another $600 million in its coffers to spend on health, education and so on.”

One NSW MP who wished to remain anonymous told Betty Con Walker that when clubs hand over cheques to community groups, “The actual cheque should be accompanied by a statement like ‘this money is forgone by the taxpayer raised for this bunch of boofheads who choose to give it to you’.”

Anthony Ball from Clubs Australia says tax breaks are given to the clubs in recognition of the role they play in the community.

“You call it a tax concession, I say it’s recognition that clubs are not-for-profit organisations that send all their money back to its members and members of the community in one way or the other,” Mr Ball said.

The Rudd government is expected to release the Productivity Commission’s report into gambling in June.