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July 6, 2026 — 4:32pm
The NSW Labor conference’s unanimous support for an end to the free-for-all enjoyed by poker machines in NSW clubs has left Premier Chris Minns with little wriggle room.
Minns has been obfuscating on poker machine reforms, despite ample evidence of their deleterious economic and social impacts, but the grassroots revolt at the weekend conference has increased pressure on him to respond to recommendations made 18 months ago by the Independent Panel on Gaming Reform.
The motion put to the conference by Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne and Unions NSW Secretary Mark Morey proposes a moratorium on new machine licences, creates a new tax on clubs that raise more than $20 million in gaming revenue and commits to halving the number of machines that can be traded between venues in 10 years’ time. It would also eliminate perks such as free food for punters and make facial recognition technology mandatory in all gaming rooms.
Byrne told the Herald, before the vote, that for too long the poker machine lobby had practised a sort of intimidation that had warped Labor politics. “Too often they’ve been acting like the National Rifle Association in the United States by targeting any person or leader who speaks up to say the poker machine harm is out of control,” he said.
The government isn’t bound to act on conference votes, but Minister for Gaming and Racing David Harris said the motion was a road-map that reflected the best of the Labor movement, reportedly his strongest support yet for tough measures.
Changes to poker machine regulation were mooted when then-premier Dominic Perrottet announced reforms on the eve of the 2023 state election.
Minns subsequently added Labor’s take, vowing to reduce the number of machines and ban political donations from clubs with gaming operations, but he refused to make all poker machines cashless by 2028, as recommended by the NSW Crime Commission. Instead, in office, he set up an independent panel to oversee a delayed trial of cashless gaming cards for poker machines.
Minns is still sitting on his hands.
How much further evidence does he require before taking action?
Politicians have been dancing around poker machine reform since 2022, when the commission delivered a damning report that found they attracted significant amounts of dirty money, and highlighted the enormous social problems that resulted.
The delay by the Minns government looks all the more curious given that the damage done by poker machines is felt hardest in its Sydney heartland. Just months after the last state election, Western Sydney University data showed just three local government areas – Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Cumberland – accounted for a third of all Sydney’s gambling losses.
We have long campaigned for meaningful gambling reform and believe that poker machines are the great running sore of NSW. If the government is truly serious about representing the people of western Sydney and protecting them from further harm, Minns needs to quit hedging his bets and implement Labor grassroots demands to crack down on a public menace.
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