The Minns Labor Government continues to reduce gambling harm by delivering on its commitment to remove outdated exemptions that enabled more than 650 pubs and clubs to operate gaming machines during standard shutdown hours.

Following an announcement in December by the Minister for Gaming and Racing David Harris that exemptions would cease from 31 March 2026, more than 650 venues will be required from 1 April to shut down all gaming machines between 4am to 10am each day, in line with NSW standard shutdown hours.

The six-hour shutdown is a harm minimisation measure intended to provide players with an important break in play.

Of the 672 venues with a varied shutdown period, usually for three hours instead of six, many have been in place for more than 20 years. These were given for reasons including being in high traffic ‘tourist’ locations, a history of earlier opening hours or financial hardship.

Venues that believed they had a strong case to keep their exemptions under the legislation and the revised Ministerial Guidelines, had the opportunity to put their case to Liquor & Gaming NSW.

As of 24 March 2026, 649 have been revoked by Liquor & Gaming NSW under delegation from the Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority and 10 by the Authority itself. Thirteen venues remain under assessment. All venues will be considered and an outcome communicated by 31 March 2026.

Sixty-two venues applied to keep their exemptions. Of the 49 applications assessed so far, all have been revoked.

Liquor & Gaming NSW will undertake a compliance campaign after 1 April when the new requirements come into effect, to ensure all venues are abiding by the changes.

A Review of Gaming Machine Shutdown Hours Framework conducted by Liquor & Gaming NSW in 2024 found that a minimum six-hour shutdown period, commencing no later than 4am, is effective at minimising gambling harm.

The move continues a suite of gaming reforms which the Minns Government has implemented since coming into office, including:

• Reducing the cash input limit from $5000 to $500 for all new gaming machines

• Reducing the state-wide cap on gaming machine entitlements, so that every year the number of gaming machines reduces based on forfeiture rates

• Banning political donations from clubs with electronic gaming machines

• Banning external gaming-related signage and internal gaming-related signage that can be seen from outside the venue

• Introducing Responsible Gambling Officers in venues with more than 20 gaming machine entitlements and mandating that extra Responsible Gambling Officers be on duty in venues after midnight

• Mandating that all venues with gaming machines must keep a Gaming Plan of Management and a Gambling Incident Register

• Banning gambling advertising on public transport and the ferries and terminals people catch it from

• Consulting with the community on a third-party exclusion scheme and use of mandatory facial recognition technology to support a statewide exclusion register for NSW hotels and clubs with gaming machines

Launching a NSW-first code of practice for the use of facial recognition in pubs and clubs that use the technology, following full consultation with a wide range of stakeholders including harm minimisation advocates, the NSW Privacy Commissioner and industry.

Minister for Gaming and Racing David Harris said: “The Minns Labor Government takes gambling harm minimisation seriously and that’s why I called for a review of the gaming machine variations back in December that has removed outdated exemptions that enabled more than 650 pubs and clubs to operate gaming machines during standard shutdown hours.

“Following months of review, it was clear these variations enabling about 20 per cent of clubs and pubs with gaming machines to operate outside of the mandated hours, some of which were more than 20 years old, were no longer fit for purpose.

“To enable variations to be revoked, I updated the Ministerial Guidelines and set up a streamlined process for venues to make their case if they wished to keep their variation, and to allow for a transition period.

“These changes are expected to prevent and reduce gambling harm.

“The NSW Government will continue to deliver evidence-based reforms to ensure we are striking the balance of addressing gambling harm while supporting sustainable development of an industry that employs more than 150,000 people in NSW and injects billions into the economy.”

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Richard Bradley, partner at gambling licensing law firm Poppleston Allen, shares how new proposals in Parliament may affect licensed premises

• The ‘aim to permit’ principle may be under threat

• Switching the burden of proof from “if nothing wrong with the application, it should in theory be approved” to “the application can be rejected if on the licensing authority’s opinion the grant may not uphold the licensing objectives”

Members of the House of Lords have begun their further examination of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, (EDCE) which is in report stage and will be discussed again today, with report stage concluding 13 April 2026.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, a Labour Life Peer in the House of Lords, has tabled an amendment to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill which proposes to introduce Gambling Impact Assessments by inserting two new sections to the Gambling Act 2005 (‘the Act’).

If the amendment is passed and these sections are inserted into the Act, this will allow a licensing authority to publish a Gambling Impact Assessment (GIA) where the authority considers the granting of any relevant licence to premises in their area is not likely to be reasonably consistent with one or more of the licensing objectives because:

• The cumulative impact of relevant licences in respect of premises in the affected part(s) or

• Other reasons which relate to that licensing objective, or those licensing objectives, and to the affected part(s).

A relevant licence has been defined as being:

• a bingo premises licence

• adult gaming centre premises licence

• family entertainment centre premises licence or

• a betting premises licence.

An authority would also be able to limit the numbers of licences in an area.

As part of any published assessment, the authority must set out evidence for how they have come to the opinion that the grant of any relevant licence would not be reasonably consistent with the objectives set out above.

Authorities will also be required to review any published GIA from time to time, and should the authority take the view that the assessment should be revised or withdrawn, they must publish any revision.

Where an application is submitted for a relevant licence and a GIA has been published and the authority has included in its Statement of Gambling Principles that there will be a presumption to refuse applications for relevant licences, then it will be deemed lawful for the authority to refuse such application solely on the ground that it falls within the scope of the GIA.

That being said, the amendment does confirm that refusing an application will be unlawful where the applicant asserts in the application that the grant would be reasonably consistent with the licensing objectives or objectives set out in the GIA and provides evidence that the grant would be reasonably consistent with the objectives.

Full details of the tabled amendment can be found here.

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