The crusading club boss and his $1.7m side hustle

A club boss who has crusaded against the industry’s reliance on gambling revenue is being scrutinised by the regulator after the club awarded his private company a $1.7 million consulting contract.

West HQ paid R.J. Errington & Associates to provide goods and services to design, evaluate and develop a new hotel to be owned and operated by the club, its annual report reveals.

Corporate filings indicate the club’s chief executive, Richard Errington, and his wife, Melinda, are the sole directors and shareholders of R.J. Errington & Associates.

Registered clubs are prohibited from entering into contracts with top executives’ companies, with a maximum penalty of $11,000, unless the contract has been approved by the board.

West HQ’s board disclosed in its annual report as a “key management personnel transaction” that Errington owned and operated R.J. Errington & Associates, which provided goods and services in relation to the new hotel valued at $1,681,145.

Liquor and Gaming NSW said it was aware of the matter and was making enquiries with the club.

The revelations come amid a building boom in the club industry, as venues try to diversify away from gambling, which accounts for up to 92 per cent of their revenue. This includes the construction of apartments, hotels, shopping plazas, retirement homes, childcare centres, restaurants and gyms.

Errington, who lives 750 kilometres north of the Rooty Hill-based West HQ in a beachfront apartment on the Gold Coast, has been vocal about the need to drive new forms of income.

In 2023, he quit the industry lobby group ClubsNSW in protest against the way it pegged its membership fees to gambling profits, declaring clubs that are over-reliant on gambling revenue are not serving their communities.

He has overseen the construction of a Novotel hotel, a 2000-seat theatre and a 4000-square-metre gymnastics and aquatic centre since he was appointed chief executive in 2006. He said in 2017 the revenue generated by the theatre would enable the club to dilute its reliance on gambling machine revenue to 50 per cent.

However, Herald analysis of gaming machine data suggests the club still draws more than half of its revenue from poker machines.

The Herald estimates about $70 million in revenue comes from gambling machines, based on taxes paid at a rate of 26.5 per cent during the three months to March 2026.

The figure can also be triangulated on the basis that West HQ owns about one-third of all the poker machines in clubs across the Blacktown local government area, and Blacktown punters gave up $52,903,133 in net profit t