The NSW government has been accused of bowing to the gambling lobby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Australia.- The New South Wales government has confirmed a delay for its cashless gaming trial<\/strong>. The trial was set to begin on July 1 with the introduction of cashless gambling on 500 poker machines in clubs and pubs. Gambling minister David Harris <\/strong>said the delay was to allow the creation of an independent panel to oversee the trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harris said the government was committed to reducing gambling harm and combating money laundering. He assured stakeholders that consultations with harm minimisation groups, industry representatives, and members of parliament were underway to finalise the composition of the independent panel and develop a trial framework. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to The Guardian, the panel will comprise people from various sectors, including the gambling industry, law enforcement, health experts and academics. Their responsibility will be to evaluate the trial’s progress and provide a comprehensive report after a year to inform potential future expansions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Critics have claimed that the delay highlights the influence of gambling lobbyists in the new parliament. Cate Faehrmann<\/strong>, the gambling spokesperson for the state Greens party, alleged that the gambling industry was deliberately impeding the trial’s implementation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Opposition gaming spokesperson Kevin Anderson<\/strong> demanded transparency from the government, calling for a revised timeline and detailed explanation for the delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Liquor and Gaming NSW<\/strong> has reported that gamblers lost AU$4.3bn (US$2.8m) to poker machines in the second half of 2022. That\u2019s AU$820m more than before the Covid-19 pandemic. The report revealed a rise in gaming profits of 120 per cent year-on-year (Sydney was still in lockdown in H2 2021). The rise was logically due to the return of customers to pubs and clubs<\/strong> and machines being switched back on after being offline during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fairfield, a suburb located in Sydney\u2019s west, remains the local government area with the highest net profit for poker machines in clubs, generating AU$225m over the six-month period. Canterbury-Bankstown followed close behind with AU$204m, ahead of Cumberland at AU$133m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report showed that more than 220 new machines<\/strong> were installed in the six-month period, taking the state total to 86,872. Gaming machine net profits jumped 11 per cent year-on-year to AU$4.26bn. That\u2019s a rise of 24 per cent from AU$3.44bn in the last six months of 2019. Pub profits increased by more than AU$400m and club profits by AU$300m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NSW government has been accused of bowing to the gambling lobby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":777006568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The New South Wales government has postponed its cashless gaming trial for poker machines, initially slated for July 1, citing the need to establish an independent oversight panel. This delay has drawn criticism regarding potential influence from the gambling lobby, while recent data from Liquor and Gaming NSW reveals a significant increase in poker machine net profits, reaching AU$4.3 billion in H2 2022.","focusai_entities":"New South Wales government, David Harris, The Guardian, Cate Faehrmann, Greens party, Kevin Anderson, Liquor and Gaming NSW","focusai_location":"Australia, New South Wales, Sydney, Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (1.0), product_ux (0.7), tech_data (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Panel's Independence?","query":"What specific governance frameworks will be implemented to ensure the independent panel's objectivity and mitigate perceived influence from the gambling lobby, particularly given the delay?"},{"label":"Regulatory Timeline Impact?","query":"How will this delay in the cashless gaming trial impact the broader regulatory roadmap for responsible gambling and AML initiatives across other gaming verticals in New South Wales?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,156],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-777006539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-regulation-news","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777006539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777006539"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777006539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777006565,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777006539\/revisions\/777006565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777006568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777006539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777006539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777006539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}New South Wales players lost US$2.8m on pokies in H2<\/h2>\n\n\n\n