Gambling incident registers

All venues with gaming machines will be required to keep a record of all gambling incidents in a register. This requirement will commence on 1 July 2024.

The purpose of a gambling incident register is harm minimisation. Maintaining a register to record incidents of problematic gambling behaviour and other gambling incidents will help RGOs and senior management to better understand issues affecting their patrons and proactively offer assistance.

All staff will be responsible for recording incidents in the register and this is a key duty for RGOs. Across all venues with gaming machines, the hotel licensee or club secretary will be responsible for maintaining the register.

The types of incidents that will need to be recorded are:

• Any incident where the patron displays or engages in problematic gambling behaviour
• Any requests for information about exclusion and requests for intervention by the venue in relation to a patron, made by the patron themselves or a family member of a patron (however no personal details of family members are allowed to be recorded)
• Any breach or attempted breach of a self-exclusion arrangement
• Any offence, alleged offence or incident involving a minor
• What action has been taken in response to an incident.

Guidance will be provided on what classifies problematic gambling behaviour.

Hotel licensees and club secretaries will be required to review the incident register on at least a monthly basis and consider whether there is harm minimisation action that can be taken in relation to trends in recorded incidents.