The vocal anti-poker machine campaigner said the proposed Bendigo Stadium development was taking advantage of vulnerable people.

“Pokies don’t build things, pokies destroy things,” Mr Xenophon said.

“When you consider that, that money would be coming off the backs of problem gamblers.

“Pokies are a job-cutter, not a job-grower.”

Bendigo Stadium officials have applied to the Victorian Commission of Gambling Regulation for 30 more poker machines that would take its total to 105 if approved.

Stadium officials hope to attract federal, state and local government funding to help pay for the development. The stadium’s poker machine profits would make up about half of the money needed.

But Mr Xenophon said financing construction off poker machine revenue was a failed business model. “It is an old idea but it is a broken idea,” he said. “It is something that does not have any credibility.”

Mr Xenophon’s comments come as Bendigo poker machine takings look set to surpass those of 2009-10.

Statistics show that for every month between last August and March, Bendigo’s machines swallowed more money than the previous month a year earlier.

Punters injected more than

$44 million into the region’s poker machines during the 2009-10 financial year.

Bendigo poker machines have swallowed more than $34 million since last July.

Bendigo Stadium’s Brendon Goddard told the Bendigo Advertiser earlier this week that the not-for-profit organisation injected the money it raised from poker machines back into the community.

The proposed development would seat 4000 spectators and cater for basketball, netball, volleyball, tennis, lawn bowls, concerts and conventions.

Mr Xenophon said he supported the development of new stadiums in regional areas, but there were better funding models to pursue.

“There have to be better ways to raise money than on the back of vulnerable people,’’ he said. “Sport stadiums are important.

‘‘But do you really want bricks and mortar to come off the back of problem gamblers? It’s unsustainable.”

National – Page 16