Sweeping reforms set to be introduced into New South Wales should the current coalition government retain power in the upcoming March election would see all poker machines in the state go cashless within five years and 2,000 machines removes from circulation, a new report reveals.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the government’s proposal was passed during a snap cabinet meeting on Sunday as Premier Dominic Perrottet continues his efforts to maintain poker machine reform as a key election issue.
Included within the proposal was a promise to establish an “independent implementation team” tasked with developing a roadmap to ensure all of the state’s 90,000 machines are cashless within five years, while the government has also vowed to buy back 2,000 machines from pubs and clubs within the same timeframe.
In an effort to appease regional pubs and clubs which in many instances rely heavily on revenue from gaming machines, the government would provide one-off AU$50,000 grants aimed at funding new income streams while also providing interest-free loans to help buy new machines featuring necessary cashless technology.
Further details are expected to be announced Monday.
The push for mandatory cashless gaming to be introduced follows a recent NSW Crime Commission report which recommended the introduction of a cashless gaming card to prevent billions of dollars of dirty money being funnelled through each year.
The report, the product of a multi-agency investigation, found that money laundering via electronic gaming machines is not widespread due to a lack of efficiency, however large sums of the proceeds of crime are being gambled by criminals in pubs and clubs across the state. As such, it concluded that allowing cash to continue to be used in EGMs makes it easy for criminals to gamble with illegally gained money.
Despite this, the Premier’s cashless gaming push has been strongly opposed by ClubsNSW which claims such a move would paint all poker machine users as criminals. However, the lobby group’s CEO, Josh Landis, was sacked last week after linking Perrottet’s agenda to his Catholic faith during a recent interview.
For its part, the NSW opposition party has vowed to slash poker machine numbers in NSW pubs and clubs if elected but said it would only make a decision on mandatory cashless gaming after running a trial.
