The report looked at the period 2019 to 2024, which was largely under the former Coalition government.

The Act includes a number of objectives, including -
 a)    in relation to harm minimisation, and
 b)    the facilitation of the balanced development of the industry.

The Audit Office of New South Wales report focused on the harm minimisation objective of the Gaming Machines Act.

The Minns Labor Government takes harm minimisation seriously and had already implemented a number of initiatives, including:

• Reducing the cash input limit from $5,000 to $500 for all new gaming machines from 1 July 2023
• Continuing to reduce the state-wide cap on gaming machine entitlements, so that every year the number of gaming machines reduces based on forfeiture rates from June 2023
• Banning external gaming-related signage and internal gaming-related signage that can be seen from outside the venue from 1 September 2023
• Introducing Responsible Gambling Officers in venues with more than 20 gaming machine entitlements from 1 July 2024
• Mandating that all venues with gaming machines must keep a -
  *    Gaming Plan of Management; and
  *    Gambling Incident Register from 1 September 2024
• Announcing a ban on gambling advertising on public transport and terminals people catch it
• Investing $100 million into the Gambling Harm Minimisation Fund from the fine imposed on the Star Casino by the NSW Independent Casino Commission
• Consulting with the community on a third-party exclusion scheme and use of mandatory facial recognition technology to support a statewide exclusion register for NSW hotels and clubs with gaming machines

We have also banned political donations from clubs with electronic gaming machines, effective from 1 July 2023.

In addition to these reforms, the Government funds the GambleAware Helpline and Gambling Help Online. Both services are available 24/7 which means anyone in NSW can access free and confidential gambling support services online, by phone or face to face.

While the former government over 12 years introduced several initiatives, the NSW Labor Government has moved quicker and has implemented more comprehensive reforms over the past two years.

The Government notes that while many of our reforms have only been in place for under 12 months, we acknowledge and welcome that both the Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport and Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority have accepted the recommendations made in the report.

This is complex reform, and changing behaviour takes time.

The Government is currently considering further recommendations from the Independent Panel on Gaming Reform.