Australia’s Star Entertainment Group is set to begin formal negotiations with the New South Wales (NSW) government over a proposal to add 1,000 gaming machines at the Star Sydney.
The proposal, if approved, would transfer existing gaming machine licenses from underperforming pubs and clubs across NSW and increase the casino’s inventory by 67 percent. Venues could opt in to the plan and choose between either selling licenses outright or leasing them to the Star for an ongoing revenue stream. Star, meanwhile, would have to forfeit one license for each three it acquired, thus reducing the state’s total gaming machine inventory by 500.
The Star Sydney is currently licensed to operate 1,500 gaming machines, or 1.6 percent of the almost 100,000 machines statewide. Star said that’s far fewer than the more than 2,600 licenses held by Crown Melbourne, 2,500 by Crown Perth and 2,500 for Star’s own Queen’s Wharf Brisbane development, due to open in 2022.
In related news, according to Inside Asian Gaming, NSW lawmakers want community input on the impacts of 2018 reforms that capped the number of poker machines in “high-risk” areas and introduced a plan that allowed small clubs and hotels to lease their Gaming Machine Entitlements (GMEs) to other clubs and hotels. The latter plan was designed to let operators go “pokies-free” while maintaining revenue from the gaming licenses.
The 96,000 poker machines in NSW represent almost half of the national total.
