NSW Government to Introduce a Mandatory Cashless Card for Poker Machines

For a couple of years now, there have been on and off talks about switching to cashless gambling in the state of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia but the subject never got enough traction. Thanks to new legislation that was tabled by cabinet minister Victor Dominello last week, the conversation was rekindled and from the look of things, the implementation is nigh.

Even though his proposed bill didn’t exactly have a definitive stance on going cashless, Dominello has been drumming support for his pitch. The measures have already been endorsed by the NSW Greens and Mark Latham from One Nation is already on board. With the unforeseen team up of the Greens and One Nation, the legislation will most likely get a majority support that will see the measures become law.

How Will the Cashless Gambling Work Should It Be Passed to Law?

Through the proposed measures, the NSW administration is looking to make it mandatory for all players of poker machine games to apply for a government-issued cashless gambling card. Money will then be pre-loaded into the card and the card will be linked to the state’s exclusion register to assist with instant identification of self-excluded gamblers. Therefore, anyone who’s on the self-exclusion list will automatically be unable to use their card.

The cashless gaming move has been proposed to further the agenda of fighting gambling harm in the state. However, the cashless card wasn’t part of Dominello’s original draft but he is also supporting the measure. The senior cabinet minister’s proposal was instead focused on the use of facial recognition technology to identify problem gamblers in a system that will minimize gambling harm.

Right now, NSW depends on an industry-run self-exclusion scheme where problem gamblers sign a deed asking to be banned from gaming machine venues. This system however isn’t working because data from 2019’s NSW Gambling Survey disclosed that about 92% of gamblers who had excluded themselves still managed to regain entry to a gambling facility. This was the case because there aren’t any enforced sanctions for individuals or gaming venues that act in violation of the ban orders.

Support and Backlash in Equal Measure

This cashless card proposal for poker machine players is being floated after recent government statistics indicated that the rate of poker machine expenditure has increased by $200 million between June and August this year. This is 12% more than what players spent over the same period last year.

As expected, the move has been well received by anti-gambling supporters, with Tim Costello, the Chief Advocate of the Alliance for Gambling Reform welcoming the measure by saying that;

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“It is immensely encouraging to have a minister responsible for gambling in NSW seeking significant reform to support people experiencing issues with gambling.”

While referring to NSW as the “effectively the non-casino pokies capital of the world.” , Costello however expressed concern than the usage of a pre-loaded card could potentially be counterproductive as players would possibly end up “losing the sense of losing ‘real’ money if everything was digital"  but  then again, he interjected by saying that the plan could take the right direction "with the right design and functionality.”

Operators of the machines and owners of the bars and the clubs hosting the machines on the other hand haven’t taken the proposed measures kindly. Josh Landis, the boss of Clubs NSW came forward to criticize the new measures in a statement to one of the local dailies as follows;

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“Gaming revenue has fallen 14% year-on-year as a result of the 10-week industry shutdown, while food and beverage takings are down 60 to 70 per cent. I don’t think anyone would agree that the middle of a pandemic is the right time to introduce onerous new compliance requirements.”

The NSW Australian Hotels Association also called out the government, raising alarm that pubs had already taken a hit due to the pandemic, and they wouldn’t be able to cope with the introduction of a pricey regulation.

With 95,000 poker machines currently operating across NSW, the poker machine industry is said to be worth $6 billion, generating $1 billion in annual tax revenue for the state. Mr. Dominello, the champion of the sweeping reforms has indicated that he plans to use technology to bring the NSW gambling machine industry into the 21st century.