More than two years have passed since the NSW Crime Commission found that criminals are funnelling billions of dollars of “dirty” cash through poker machines every year in NSW and said mandatory cashless gaming cards would be the most effective way to fix the problem.
Despite much political jockeying since, we still haven’t been able to kick the habit. Beyond their attraction to organised crime, pokies are a blight on Sydney and our state. Some 87,000 machines prey on the vulnerable in pubs and clubs, triggering cumulative player losses of $8.129 billion last year. A cashless gaming card could rein in criminality, and the human misery inflicted by an industry that has for too long lazily relied on the machines to prop up their business models.
The Herald has campaigned for change for the past two years and we have no intention of backing off. Indeed, the fight is about to enter new territory following the delivery to the Minns government of a major report that could prove a pivotal moment in the debate.
A recap: the Coalition under Dominic Perrottet went to the March 2023 state election promising to transition the state’s poker machines to cashless technology by 2028 in a $340 million package of measures. Alliance for Gambling Reform chief advocate Tim Costello at the time hailed the plan as “historic” and as the biggest reform he had ever seen in this space.
NSW Labor went to the election with a much less ambitious idea to hold a trial into cashless gaming should it win. It also vowed to outlaw political donations from clubs that house poker machines, to reduce the cash feed-in limits in new machines and to ban pokie advertising outside all venues, including VIP room signage.
That trial has been under way for the better part of a year but it has been plagued by claims it was set up to fail. Now, the Independent Panel for Gaming Reform’s three-person executive committee has delivered its 530-page report.
What does it recommend? We don’t know, because the government hasn’t released the report. Gaming and Racing Minister David Harris would only say the government will consider the report and “will not be rushing its response”.
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Gambling harm experts and pro-reform advocates who gave advice to the panel (and who asked to sign non-disclosure agreements) are wary about the recommendations and with good reason. A leaked draft shows the terminology has been changed from “cashless” to “account-based” gambling. Controversially, the draft recommends a non-binding default limit on the amount of money and time that could be spent on the pokies and for players to be able to amend these limits or to opt out of them altogether.
It’s not unreasonable for the premier and his ministers to take some time before formally responding to the report but it’s unacceptable for it to be kept from the public in the meantime.
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