People could exclude family members from betting on poker machines under wide-ranging gambling reforms proposed by Dominic Perrottet on Monday.
Elements of the Coalition plan include:
- every poker machine in NSW cashless by the end of 2028;
- mandatory self-imposed spending limits which cannot be changed for seven days;
- cooling-off periods and breaks in play;
- player identity verification linked to a single bank account;
- no fund transfers from credit cards or automatic top-ups; and
- no "VIP lounge" signs.
The new laws would also ban political donations from pubs and clubs in NSW.
The reform package would allow gamblers to self-exclude from betting on poker machines and allow family members to ban problem gamblers from the pokies.
Many details of how the plan will be implemented remain uncertain. An implementation taskforce would advise the government on how the scheme would work.
The Alliance for Gambling Reform has enthusiastically backed the Perrottet package, and anti-gambling advocates say the cashless cards and their pre-commitment limits allow punters to shift decisions about how much to spend from the addictive environment of a pokie room to the cold light of day.
Poker machine load-up limits, which now range from $5000 to $9999 in NSW, would fall to $500 under the government's plan. The limit is $1000 in Victoria and the Northern Territory, $100 in Queensland and $99.99 in South Australia.
Wests New Lambton is trialling a cashless gaming scheme which gives some idea of what the changes could look like.
The technology connects a gambler's mobile phone digital wallet to one of 36 poker machines via Bluetooth.
The digital wallet can set spending and time limits at the player's discretion, limit visits to a venue in a specified period, enforce breaks and allow players to self-exclude from gambling.
Patrons cannot load funds into the digital wallet from the gaming floor.
The technology being used at Wests allows players to change spending and other limits after 24 hours, but the government's proposal pushes that out to a week.
The government says it will spend $344 million on the changes, including interest-free loans to pay the entire transition cost to cashless machines in small and medium-sized pubs and clubs and one-off grants up to $50,000 for small and medium venues to support new revenue streams such as live music.
The reforms would mandate that all new machines bought once the full rollout starts in 2024 be cashless.
New cash machines bought after July 2023 would have a load-up limit of $500.
A community grant program for small and medium venues would cover the cost of all non-tax-deductible donations they make to sports clubs and community groups until 2028 once they have confirmed an order for cashless technology.
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