The Government of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, has announced that it established an independent panel to oversee a reform of the gambling sector in the state.
The panel will be composed of sixteen members and will be chaired by Michael Foggo, an individual with plenty of experience in the industry as he is a former Commissioner of the New South Wales Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing.
There will be four industry representatives on the panel, four harm minimisation representatives and two academics. The rest of the members include one representative each for Cyber Security NSW, the New South Wales Police and the United Workers Union. The panel will also have two executive committee members: Ursula Stephens, Labor senator, and Niall Blair, a former member of the legislative council.
One of the main tasks of the panel will be to oversee the planned trial of cashless gaming but it will also have to implement a clear roadmap for gaming reforms. The panel will have to seek input for these reforms from external sources such as the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac), the government body that has recently made Crown Resorts pay 450 million Australian dollars in penalties.
The panel will also have to issue other recommendations regarding the expansion of the self-exclusion register to the whole state, as well as using facial recognition technology to enforce exclusion schemes. The panel will have to submit a definitive report to the government in November 2024 at the latest.
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