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Cash Access and Gaming Machine Design

Cash access

To protect problem gamblers, access to large amounts of money at gaming venues has been limited. The measures include:

• requiring all winnings and accumulated credits of $1000 or more on a non-casino gaming machine to be paid entirely by cheque, with an option for players to request cheque payment for smaller amounts
• prohibiting gaming venue operators from cashing more than one cheque of a value of over $400 in a 24 hour period
• setting a maximum per customer per day withdrawal limit of $400 for all ATMs in gaming venues or within 50 metres of an entrance to the Melbourne casino gaming floor.

Gaming machine design

There are a number of restrictions on gaming machine design that are aimed at reducing harm caused by excessive gambling. These measures applied to all new games from 1 January 2003. All non-casino games and machines must comply by 1 January 2008.

The measures include:

• a ban on $100 note acceptors, meaning gaming machines are not allowed to accept notes greater than $50
• a ban on autoplay facilities; the machines must require the player to fully release a button before pressing it again to effect the next spin
• a maximum bet limit of $10, with plans to further reduce this limit to $5.

Spin rates

From 1 January 2003, the spin rates of all non-casino games have been restricted so that they are not allowed to operate faster than one spin per 2.14 seconds.