New South Wales Police Commissioner approves cashless gaming

Relatively new New South Wales Police Commissioner, Karen Webb, has expressed full support for the proposed cashless gaming system that is being championed by New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet and the NSW Crime Commission. This is in a bid to stop the flow of illegal funds going through the system by way of gambling in pubs and clubs. She noted for a country where most of its sectors have gone digital, it is unusual for a sector such as the gambling industry to still operate with cash.

In her interview with an Australian news outlet, she explained: “Everything is digital,” she told the Herald. “It’s a bit of an outlier that there is cash in that system when everything else is digital. It is an area of concern for us. “If gambling is a mechanism, then it is probably a hole that needs to be closed,” she added. For her, having a cashless gaming system in the state would make curbing crime and enforcing anti-money laundering laws easier for the police as all funds can then be traced to the spender.

Ever since the Crime Commission released a report showing how $95 billion in illicit funds go through poker machines, there has increased push to introduce cashless gaming in the state. Premier Perrottet is looking to install the cashless gaming technology on all of NSW’s 95,000 poker machines. However, this has caused a division between the state’s hospitality industry and other supporters of the proposal, especially state MP’s. Just recently ClubsNSW embarked on a supposedly smear campaign against MP Helen Dalton for supporting cashless gaming in her jurisdiction.

For ClubsNSW, the hospitality body of all pubs and clubs in the state, introducing cashless gaming will make players feel like criminals, thus deterring them from playing and ultimately affecting the revenue of pubs and clubs. Meanwhile, not only ClubsNSW disapproves of the measure. Other MP’s feel like the technology cannot work in the state and even if it will work, it would need extensive testing. However, the premier continues in his quest to see that the gambling industry in ‘Australia’s gambling capital’ is reformed and safe for consumers.

In terms of consumer safety, an academic at the University of New South Wales, Professor David Dixon, has pointed out that though the measure will do a lot in stamping out money laundering, there is only so much it can do to deal with problem gambling. Meanwhile, gambling reform advocates are calling for bipartisan support for the premier’s commitment towards revamping the industry.

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