Facial recognition mandatory in major pokies crackdown

FACIAL recognition cameras will soon be rolled out every Riverina pub and club with poker machines under sweeping new laws aimed at tackling NSW’s growing gambling crisis.

NSW Gaming and Racing Minister David Harris unveiled the long-awaited reforms on Tuesday, with the Minns government committing $95.2 million over four years to the package.

But critics argue the reforms expose an uncomfortable contradiction, with the state increasingly reliant on the very poker machine losses it is attempting to curb.

NSW punters lost a record $9.3 billion to poker machines in 2025, an eight per cent increase on the previous year, while the state government currently pockets about $1.6 billion a year in gambling tax revenue, a figure forecast to surge to $2.2 billion within four years.

In Wagga alone, more than $71 million was fed into the city’s pokies last year, with another $18 million disappearing into the machines in the first three months of 2026.

The 2025 losses equate to more than $1.3 million every week and almost $200,000 every day.

At the centre of the overhaul will be a new statewide exclusion register, replacing a fragmented system which currently allows gamblers to exclude themselves from individual venues.

“Under this system, the whole exclusion system would apply to every venue in the state,” Mr Harris said.

Gamblers will be able to voluntarily place themselves on the register, while family members, friends and police will also be able to apply to have people excluded.

The new system will be enforced by facial recognition cameras installed at gaming room entrances across the state.

Venues will be required to purchase and install their own cameras and keep records of exclusion incidents.

Mr Harris said the technology would operate under “really strict guidelines” governing the collection and use of data.

The system is also expected to support NSW Police efforts to prevent poker machines being used for money laundering and other criminal activity.

The reforms also include restrictions on gambling advertising and direct marketing from betting providers, along with bans on VIP programs linked to gaming.

Mandatory facial recognition and the statewide exclusion register are expected to become enforceable in 2028.

But Wesley Mission chief executive officer Reverend Stu Cameron argues the package falls well short of the more fundamental changes needed to curb mounting poker machine losses, which continue to deliver an increasingly lucrative windfall to state coffers.

“It feels like we’re kicking the can down the road when it comes to real proportionate gambling reform,” Mr Cameron said.

The Minns government has stopped short of mandating account-based gaming, which could require players to set spending and time limits before gambling, and has refused to mandate shutting down poker machines after midnight, despite overnight gambling being identified as a particularly high-risk period.

Almost 88,000 poker machines, or roughly half of Australia’s total, remain in operation across NSW.

According to Liquor & Gaming NSW figures, the number of active machines has increased by almost 600 since the Minns government took office, reaching 87,908, while losses per machine have continued to grow well above the rate of inflation.