A bill before the Australian Capital Territory's parliament would require every poker machine in Canberra to run on cashless, account-based play, remove ATMs from gaming venues and reduce machine numbers to 1,000 by 2045. The Gaming Machine (Harm Prevention and Reduction) Amendment Bill 2026 was introduced to the Assembly on October 20 by Minister for Gaming Reform Marisa Paterson. It would rewrite the Gaming Machine Act 2004 and its regulation. The bill is before parliament and has not passed.

What the bill would require

According to the bill's explanatory statement, nobody could play a gaming machine without first opening a player account, verifying their identity and receiving a card. The machines would accept only that card.

Each account holder would set a net loss limit at sign-up. A 15-minute break would be forced after an hour of play. Raising a loss limit would trigger a 48-hour wait, while lowering it could happen immediately. Venue operators would commit an offence if they issued a card to a child or let a child use the account system on licensed premises.

The current $250-per-gaming-day withdrawal cap would be removed. In its place, the bill would prohibit cash machines at any premises holding gaming machines, so players would have no cash access inside a venue.

A 20-year reduction in machines

The territory would give up 500 machine authorisations every four years until the total reaches 1,000 in 2045. This schedule would be written into the legislation rather than left to ministerial discretion. The first compulsory surrender would not occur until 2029.

The bill sets no start date for the cashless and ATM measures. They would begin only once the minister issues a written notice, and the source material does not say when that might happen. The number of machines currently authorised in the territory is also not given in the source material.

The government's evidence and the reaction

The government points to its 2024 ACT Gambling Survey as the basis for the bill. In her second-reading speech, Paterson put the survey count at more than 58,000 residents reporting at least one form of gambling harm, roughly a sixth of the adult population. She said poker machines were behind about a third of the territory's total harm burden. These figures are the government's characterisation of the survey. The survey itself was not available for this report.

The Alliance for Gambling Reform backed the bill on the day it was introduced, but argued for stronger settings. It called for loss limits fixed by law rather than chosen by players, breaks in play that venues must enforce rather than merely offer, and longer shutdown periods.

Consultation ran through a Cashless Gaming Working Group. It included clubs, community groups, researchers and the Gaming Technologies Association. The source material does not set out those parties' positions on the final bill, apart from the Alliance's response. The source notes that clubs face a long runway before any surrender is due.

Context

The bill concerns land-based poker machines in licensed venues. Online casino services remain prohibited in Australia under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001. The ACT proposal follows pressure for pokies reform elsewhere in the country, including an NSW regulator crackdown on gaming venues. The ACT measure would give that direction its firmest legislative form yet, according to the trade publication that reported on the bill.

The bill still has to pass the Assembly. Its detail, including the loss-limit design and the commencement notice, could change before then.