Dominic Perrottet‘s plan to take pokies reform nation-wide

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet will push to make all of Australia’s poker machines cashless and collect data on their customers if he is re-elected in two weeks.

‘Crime does not stop at the border’ … NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet in his office at Parliament House in Sydney with daughters Amelia, 11, and Beatrice, 3. Picture: James Horan

Dominic Perrottet will push to make all of the country’s poker machines cashless and collect data on all their customers if he is re-elected in two weeks.

The NSW Premier plans to take a proposal to nationalise his controversial pokies reforms to ­Anthony Albanese and national cabinet after the March 25 state election, as part of a wider plan to crack down on money laundering.

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian Magazine on his eve of his official election launch, the NSW Liberal leader talked juggling politics with his family of seven children, his ­Catholicism, and how he was prepping to take his struggling, warring party into a fourth term.

Mr Perrottet’s decision to tackle poker machines has heaped the most pressure on him in the past few months. It has pitted him against the powerful and well-funded ClubsNSW lobby group, as he tries to shore up Coalition seats and win other seats off Labor to return his minority government back into a majority.

But the Premier, who made his mark in his short time in office on the national stage advocating for slashing Covid restrictions, said he wanted to pursue his pokies plans with the Prime Minister and his fellow premiers.

“Crime does not stop at the border and nor does addiction, so if we are serious as a country about stopping money laundering and helping some of our most vulnerable people we should take a national approach,” he said.

“I know all states have different issues and accept that NSW has the most pokie machines, but where we can work together in solving a national problem then I believe we can achieve great things.

“I’m not saying every state needs to have the same approach, but I think the principles of what we are doing could help other states deal with the same challenge that we are facing with ­respect to money laundering and problem gambling.”

NSW would appear to have by far the biggest problem with pokies and money laundering, having more machines than Victoria and Queensland combined.

The state has more than 86,000 pokies in its pubs and clubs, and at Sydney’s Star casino.

Victoria has a cap of 30,000 pokies, with more than 2600 in Melbourne’s Crown casino and the rest in pubs and clubs.

Queensland has about 40,000 poker machines in pubs, clubs and casinos. And it is estimated that South Australia has about 13,000 poker machines across pubs, clubs and casinos with no disclosed plans to make them cashless.

Tasmania has more than 3300 poker machines, including its Wrest Point casino, and plans to make its machines cashless by the end of next year.

Western Australia and the Northern Territory both have about 2500 machines.