Labor promises cashless gaming trial for pokies

NSW Labor will ban donations from registered clubs and implement a mandatory cashless gaming trial as part of the gambling reform platform.

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns. Picture: NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

NSW Labor will ban donations from registered clubs and implement a mandatory cashless gaming trial as part of the gambling reform platform it will take to the March election, with Opposition Leader Chris Minns committing to a compulsory card if the trial is successful.

The sustained pressure from an unlikely alliance of anti-pokies campaigners has turned gambling revenue into a key election issue, and Mr Minns has come under fire for his reticence to implement pokies reform.

On Monday, he unveiled his party’s suite of gambling reform initiatives, announcing they would seek to reduce the number of poker machines across the state, while introducing a $500 cash limit on gambling machines as a mechanism to prevent criminals laundering money.

The headline announcement would see a 12-month cashless gaming trial across 500 of the state’s more than 95,000 pokies. An independent panel of experts would oversee the trial and consider whether the evidence was there to support implementation of a gaming card statewide.

As revealed in The Australian, Labor’s gambling reforms will also ban donations from registered clubs, with Mr Minns telling his MPs they could not accept ­donations from Monday.

As not-for-profit organisations, registered clubs had previously been exempt from a donation ban on liquor and gambling businesses.

Mr Minns said the reform package was “comprehensive” but conceded determining what a successful trial looked like might prove difficult, particularly with proposed cash limits on pokies applicable only to new ­machines.

Clubs selected to undergo the trial would be compensated for any losses incurred, he said, saying of the $100m invested in harm minimisation by Labor, up to $27m would be spent on participating clubs.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has vowed to introduce the card for poker machines if the ­Coalition is re-elected in March, but is yet to announce how this would be implemented, leading to criticism from the lobby groups representing pubs and clubs.

An unlikely spat between Mr Perrottet and former Labor premier Bob Carr – who served from 1995 to 2005 – emerged on Monday, with the former accusing the Carr government of placing “pokies on every street corner”.