NSW Reforms Gambling Framework to Boost Protections

The Minns Labor Government in New South Wales has announced a tranche of reforms meant to strengthen consumer safeguards and ensure that players are protected from gambling-related harms. NSW Government Outlines Key Measures Meant to Protect Consumers The new measures come at a time of rapid changes across the sector, with public scrutiny and pressure on holding gambling companies to tighter consumer-protection standards increasing. NSW also cited the Gambling Survey 2024, which indicated that 3.1% of the adult population has experienced moderate risk gambling, while 0.9% already qualified as high-risk gamblers. As such, several measures have been outlined by the NSW and are at various stages of implementation and enforcement. First off, the government is planning to reduce the overall number of poker machines in the state, which have reached 87,000 units. “The NSW Government will increase the forfeiture rate when gaming machine entitlements are traded from one in three to one in two – meaning for every two entitlements traded, one will be permanently removed,” the NSW Government explained. There will also be facial recognition technology deployed en masse, and it will be mandatory, ensuring that people on the statewide exclusion register do not access and play without authorization. The statewide exclusion register is yet to be implemented and will supersede a voluntary register, with the new ones enforcing restrictions when there is enough evidence to suggest that an individual is struggling. Measures Meant to Address Key Areas of Regulation The government is also beginning to build account-based play, a measure that will see gamblers create accounts, register, and play with them, rather than gamble anonymously. Further measures include the ban of VIP programs linked to gaming, but also prohibiting gambling advertising on NSW Government and council-owned assets. Direct marketing will also come under further scrutiny, with people only able to receive direct marketing communications via text or phone calls after they have explicitly granted their consent. The government will also raise transparency requirements, obligating advertisements, influencers, and affiliates to disclose any affiliation with gambling websites, and for ads to better reflect the implied harm that gambling entails.