william russell redfern

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Updated Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:17pm AEST


Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes a Court own the South Sydney Football Club (File photo) (Getty Images: Matt King)

Audio: South Sydney chairman yet to see pokie ban proposal (The World Today) Audio: Russell Crowe pushes to rid Sydney leagues club of pokies (AM) Map: Redfern 2016
The celebrity co-owners of the South Sydney football club are putting forward a radical proposal for gambling-obsessed New South Wales.

Actor Russell Crowe and businessman Peter Holmes a Court say they want to get rid of their club's 160 poker machines because they are worried about the social cost of gambling.

Ban the pokies. It sounds so simple.

But this is NSW - you can barely find a club or a pub in the state without at least one room devoted to poker machines and reaping literally millions of dollars.

Today the NSW Government has extended gambling in the state by allowing hotels to introduce the Keno lottery game.

It's a lucrative business, so when the owner of a football club suggests that the associated leagues club could do without pokies, directors get nervous.

South Sydney Leagues Club chairman Bill Alexious-Hucker says the club earns around $2.5 million per year from the pokies.

"It's a lot of money to a club or to a business... I'd hate to think that in my business we lost a client worth $2.5 million to us," he said.

"It would be very hard to go out and find a new one."

But that's exactly what Mr Crowe and Mr Holmes a Court want to see happen at Souths when the leagues club, now being redeveloped, opens next March.

Mr Holmes a Court says poker machines are bad for the community.

"It's an incredible social cost when you're in an area like we are in Redfern, which is trying to transform itself, trying to improve and grow," he said.

"When you're trying to do that there is such a social cost that comes with poker machines that it's just not appropriate for us to be supporting them."

Mr Alexio-Hucker is not dismissing the idea.

"If we could make it work, it would be fabulous as a beacon, say, of an example of a club that can survive long-term without the need for poker machines," he said.

Mr Crowe and Mr Holmes a Court have transformed South Sydney after buying the football club last year. It is now a high-profile business with added Hollywood glamour and, after many lean years, some success on the field.

But the football club and the leagues club are still very much separate entities and Mr Alexiou-Hucker wants to see a solid proposal on paper before getting rid of the pokies.

"It's just an expression of a view, I guess, at the moment, just like any other member of the leagues club can raise, because it's not based on anything, on a business sense," he said.

"Morally, yes, but on a business issue, we haven't seen anything that the board can base their decision on."

Mr Holmes a Court says the money the club currently earns from pokies can be made in other ways.

"We've got to provide an alternative - it's not going to be an empty room," he said.

"There'll be other activities and other things that take place in these clubs, and that's what we've got to try and promote."

But Mr Alexiou-Hucker wants greater detail.

"To take it to the board, you need to come up with numbers; you need to prove to us that the club can sustain its existence based on your views of no poker machines in the leagues club," he said.

The vision of a club with no pokies has been embraced by Federal Treasurer Peter Costello.

"I think what they've announced is fantastic and all credit to them," he said.

"I hope the club goes from strength to strength. We've got enough poker machines in Australia."

But not enough Keno it seems - at least not in New South Wales.


Keno in NSW pubs

The poker machine debate within South Sydney comes at the same time the NSW Government has announced the Keno lottery game can now be played in hotels as well as clubs.

Mr Costello is opposed to the change.

"What are these Labor governments thinking of?" he said.

"Having flooded Australia with poker machines we're now going to double up with Keno competitions. There's got to be an end to this."

NSW Gaming and Racing Minister Graham West has defended the introduction of Keno into pubs.

"Since February this year, clubs and the pubs came to an agreement on an extension of Keno into the hotel industry and sought the Government to ratify that deal, which is what we did," he said.

He says Keno is different to poker machines.

"It's more like an electronic bingo-type game," he said.

But he acknowledges it is still more gambling.

"It's certainly a form of gambling," he said.

"On the problem gambling study we did it came in about number four on people's gambling: about 11 per cent of the population use Keno and most of those less than once a month so it's not one of the leading forms of gambling.

"We certainly don't shy from the fact that we have got a gambling problem that we've got to work to address."

He says it will be just another form of gambling at venues that already have poker machines.

"It's not necessarily extending the outlets [available to problem gamblers]," he said.

"There's other forms of gambling people can use in hotels, so there's poker machines in the majority of hotels, so this is a different type of gambling."

SNELLVILLE, Ga. (AP) ― A man died of a heart attack after being head-butted by an armless man during a fight over a woman, and no felony charges will be filed, authorities said Wednesday.

Investigators said they made the determination after learning that Charles Keith Teer, 49, had heart problems long before the confrontation with William Russell Redfern, an artist who has won recognition for drawings he does with his feet.

"The autopsy revealed he had serious heart disease and blockages and they'd been there for quite awhile," Snellville Police Chief Roy Whitehead said.

He added, however, that misdemeanor charges such as criminal trespass or simple battery against the 44-year-old Redfern were still a possibility.

Teer and Redfern scuffled Monday in the driveway of a suburban Atlanta home.

Redfern, who was born with no right arm and a stump below his left shoulder, kicked Teer, and Teer hit Redfern during the fight, authorities said. Teer complained of feeling dizzy after the fight, collapsed, and died.

The fight stemmed from bad blood over a woman who once dated Teer and now dates Redfern, authorities said.

A woman who answered the phone Tuesday at Redfern's home in suburban Tucker said he had no comment. She declined to identify herself.

Known by the nickname "Rusty," Redfern made a name for himself in the late 1980s for pen and ink drawings he does using his foot.

According to the Web site for VSA Arts ― an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that promotes and showcases artists with disabilities ― Redfern's drawings take one to six months to complete.

He was one of six Georgians who represented the state at the 1989 International Arts Festival in Washington, and was commissioned by Georgia's then-Secretary of State Max Cleland for a series of illustrations depicting the state capitol.

According to the site, he started Redfern Originals Inc. in 1987, producing Christmas cards, stationery and limited-edition prints.

William Russell (12 April 1884, The Bronx, New York - 18 February 1929, Beverly Hills, California) was an American silent film actor.

His birth name was William Lerche.

William worked briefly with the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company before switching to the Thanhouser Company.

In 1917, William married actress Charlotte Burton; however, they became divorced in 1921 and he married another actress, Helen Ferguson.

William died at a young age due to pneumonia.