Another $10B in pokies losses for players and $10B in profits for clubs, pubs and government – another year rolls by. Michael West reports on NSW’s forgotten but epic gambling scourge.
Money can’t buy you love, they say; but in NSW pokies money can buy you a lot of affection from governments. And protection. It is often said that clubs in NSW – you know your friendly RSL, leagues or bowlo club – represent the biggest gambling sector in the biggest gambling province in the biggest gambling nation in the world.
We don’t have the latest forensic research to stack this up; perhaps Las Vegas Nevada might contend otherwise. Yet the numbers are eye-watering. And the NSW state government under Premier Chris Minns is doing an effective nothing to address the social harm, apart from profiting from it to the tune of $2B a year and rising.
(You can see the latest efforts here, and exaggerated response by the lobby.)
On June 12, 2025, the Audit Office of New South Wales issued a report entitled Regulation of gaming machines. It excoriates the NSW government for not supporting poker machine harm minimisation outcomes.
The Government did respond to the key findings of the Audit Office, lamely. The pursuit of effective regulation of pokies was “complex” they claimed. No, it’s not. A truthful response would have been, “sorry, it’s just too dang profitable so we are going to continue to pretend we are doing something”.
Did the Minns regime deploy the same public relations agency as federal comms minister Anika Wells, who is yet still dithering over gambling ads reform because it’s too “complex”? In her case, and that of her predecessor Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, there could be nothing simpler that slapping on an ad ban.
Since we revealed here earlier in the year a plethora of breaches by Sportsbet, there has been not a whimper heard from regulators.
As with Sportsbet’s escalating profits, financial benefits for pubs and clubs (including trade union clubs) and concomitant pokies taxes for governments are astronomical. Bear in mind the Audit Office numbers are old now, but if you care to look at club accounts you will find them rising every year. Risk free, tax free (apart from the NSW Government take).
The Audit Office report is of such high quality that it is apposite simply to cut and paste excerpts from it with a few editorial comments.
Fun facts from NSW Audit Office (and snarky observations from us)
More than half of all gaming machines in Australia are in New South Wales. Current government policy settings mean that it will take 55 years before NSW reaches parity with the national per capita average for gaming machines.
So the NSW government is leaving future generations to deal with the mess from the current poker machine saturation.
There were 87,749 gaming machines operating in clubs and hotels throughout NSW in June 2024. The legislative cap on gaming machines is even higher at 95,739.
In NSW the legislative cap is always higher because clubs and hotels must have the capacity to increase poker machine numbers as and when needed to increase their profits.
The local government areas of Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Cumberland had the highest concentration of gaming machines and the highest levels of socio-economic disadvantage. In Fairfield there was one gaming machine for every 55 people. In contrast, the Ku-ring-gai local government area had one gaming machine for every 1443 people.
What better way to deal with a cost-of-living crisis in Fairfield than to jam as many poker machines as you can in their streets. What’s next? Pokies in Fairfield’s public schools and libraries to get that ratio to one in every 10 people?
$8.4B net profits for clubs and hotels from gaming machines in 2023-24 and $2.3B in tax revenue from gaming machines in NSW in 2023-24.
In other words, annual gambling losses on poker machines in NSW are $10.7B. The NSW Government euphemistically describes poker machines as “entertainment” as if losing your shirt was a pathway to happiness.
One in five venues in NSW have an exemption that allows gaming machine operation from 4am to 10am.
Dracula did his best bloodsucking work in the wee hours too. The exemptions are apparently necessary so people with mental illness and gambling addiction can exercise their civil liberties at 4am to be ‘entertained’ by inflicting financial hardship on themselves, their families and their communities. The Salvos and Anglicare can clean up.
The regulator of poker machines in NSW – the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority – had a budget of $4.9m for 2023-24.
Editor: As a percentage of the taxes collected on poker machines the NSW government regulates the industry by spending 0.231% or 0.2 cents for every poker machine tax dollar. Let’s face it, they are not fair dinkum.
The relevant NSW government department – the Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport – are not supporting harm minimisation strategies effectively. They have a regulatory strategy that does not have a sufficient focus on the areas that are considered high-risk for gambling harm. They set no targets for reducing harm associated with gaming machines. Inevitably, gaming machine losses and the social costs of gambling harm continue to be disproportionately concentrated in socio-economically disadvantaged communities.
Let the suicides, the financial hardship and the domestic violence attributable to poker machine saturation and gambling addiction at licensed premises serving alcohol at 4am in the morning roll on because the NSW government cares too much about money and money can and buy you love of poker machines.
As we have said here many times the justification for pokies is empty. the Clubs lobby claim pokies revenue is redirected to ‘community’ but MWM research of the financial statements of top clubs show their profits overwhelmingly derive from pokies (as opposed to food and bev) while they ‘give back’ little more than 3% of pokies profits to ‘community’.
And one last point, the ‘it’s complex’ excuse is also hollow. As with gambling ads, a ban is easy to legislate (though opposed by media and betting companies, so it is in pokies the electronic gaming card is also a simple way to contain both problem gambling *and* money laundering.
The money is just too big – and that is the simple, not complex, truth.
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.