New South Wales has taken one of its most sweeping steps in gambling harm reduction to date, revoking more than 650 gaming machine shutdown exemptions that had allowed hundreds of pubs and clubs across the state to operate electronic gaming machines during hours when all other venues are legally required to shut them down. From April 1, 2026, every licensed venue in NSW must power down all gaming machines between 4am and 10am each day no exceptions.
NSW law mandates a six-hour daily shutdown for gaming machines in pubs and clubs, running from 4am to 10am. However, of the 672 venues operating under varied arrangements, most ran only a three-hour closure — effectively halving the mandated break. Many exemptions had been in place for over two decades, granted for reasons including high-traffic tourist locations, a history of earlier opening hours, or historical claims of financial hardship.
Following a December 2025 announcement by Minister for Gaming and Racing David Harris that exemptions would cease from March 31, 2026, Liquor and Gaming NSW moved swiftly. As of March 24, 649 exemptions had been revoked by Liquor and Gaming NSW, with a further 10 revoked directly by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority. Thirteen venues remain under assessment. Of the 62 venues that applied to retain their exemptions, all 49 assessed to date have been revoked. A compliance campaign will run from April 1 to ensure adherence.
The evidence is clear. A 2024 Review of the Gaming Machine Shutdown Hours Framework confirmed that a minimum six-hour shutdown beginning no later than 4am effectively minimises gambling harm by giving players a meaningful break and an opportunity to step away from the gaming environment. A 2023 study on late-night EGM play reinforced the urgency — 70.5% of people playing between 4am and 10am are classified as high-risk or moderate-risk gamblers, meaning the exempted hours were disproportionately serving the most vulnerable players.
NSW is home to almost 88,000 electronic gaming machines, representing nearly half of all machines in Australia. Recent analysis from the Grattan Institute found NSW residents lost $1,288 per adult on pokies in 2023 — double the national average — underlining the scale of the challenge regulators are working to address.
The decision has drawn broad support from harm reduction advocates. NSW Council of Social Service CEO Cara Varian welcomed the uniform closure, saying vulnerable communities would now have a meaningful buffer during the early morning hours. However, Greens MP Cate Faehrmann was more pointed, describing the standard shutdown as “the absolute bare minimum” and criticising the length of time it had taken to close what she called a loophole that had been exploited for years.
Minister Harris acknowledged the phased approach but defended the timeline. “They were given those exemptions, some of them 20 years ago, some of them for hardship which clearly isn’t the case now. These are businesses and you can’t just jump in and just cut them off at the throat,” Harris said. He added the NSW Government would continue to deliver evidence-based reforms that balance gambling harm reduction with support for an industry employing more than 150,000 people in NSW and contributing billions to the state’s economy.
The exemption revocations sit within a wider suite of gambling harm measures introduced by the Minns Labor Government. These include reducing the cash input limit on new gaming machines from AU$5,000 to AU$500, lowering the statewide cap on gaming machine entitlements, banning political donations from clubs with gaming machines, restricting gambling-related signage visible from outside venues, and introducing mandatory Responsible Gambling Officers in venues with more than 20 gaming machine entitlements. Consultations are also underway on a third-party exclusion scheme and the use of mandatory facial recognition technology to support a statewide exclusion register. The six-hour shutdown rule does not apply to casinos.
