NSW venues complying with new legislation

A month-long compliance blitz has found that nearly 99 per cent of pubs and clubs inspected in New South Wales are now free of external gambling-related signage.

During the compliance programme, Liquor and Gaming NSW inspected over 1,100 venues across 35 metropolitan and eight regional local government areas. This represents just over 50 per cent of all venues in NSW with an entitlement to hold gaming machines.

These inspections revealed 16 venues with prohibited external signage, which L&GNSW is investigating. This represents an overall compliance rate of almost 99 per cent.

This signage has been found to be triggering for those with gambling-related issues and were banned from September 1, 2023.

L&GNSW has directly communicated with industry on the changes, first announced in May, including issuing a compliance position paper and several communications on its website and to venues in the months and weeks leading up to the ban. 

Inspectors are currently assessing the instances of prohibited signage identified during the blitz to determine the cause of delay in removing the signage.

Those venues which are not able to produce clear evidence that the delays were caused by factors outside of their control will be fined.