NSW Crime Commission suggests cashless gaming cards to stop dirty money

The New South Wales Crime Commission says that mandatory cashless gaming cards and enhanced data collection are two measures could be a part of the solution to hindering the billions of dollars of “dirty” cash that it says is being funneled through Australian pubs and clubs each year.

The multi-agency investigation, Project Islington', found that the “cleaning” of the proceeds of crime is not widespread in clubs and pubs - because it is an inefficient way to launder money - but that large sums of the proceeds of crime are being gambled by criminals in pubs and clubs across the state.

Approximately $95 billion in cash flows through poker machines in pubs and clubs in NSW each year.

NSW Crime Commissioner Michael Barnes said, “At the moment serious offenders can enter NSW pubs and clubs, sit down next to patrons in gaming rooms, and openly feed large sums of cash from their crimes into poker machines with no real fear of detection.

“The lack of traceable data collected by EGMs (electronic cash gaming machines) means the exact scale of this criminal activity is impossible to determine but it is clear from our investigations it involves many billions of dollars every year."

Mr Barnes said: “These basic reforms will help exclude vast sums of dirty cash that are primarily the proceeds of drug dealing. I’m sure venues won’t argue they should keep receiving that."

But they do. The Australian Hotels Association of NSW has disputed the claim, says this is a change in position from the NSWCCC, that there is no evidence behind the claim and calls the suggestion of a cashless card: "unproven, un-costed and unnecessary".

AHA NSW CEO John Whelan says that the NSWCC and the AHA NSW have been in agreement for some time that "the cleaning of the proceeds of crime is not widespread in NSW pubs".

“To then, at the same time, have the Crime Commission call for all cash to suddenly be banned in venues is an unjustified overreach...The Crime Commission has found using EGMs to clean dirty money is not widespread, so there is no reason why the use of cash should be banned - it makes no logical sense.

Mr Whelan said the AHA would be supportive of a call by the Commission to reduce EGM cash load-up limits in an effort to stop criminals using machines but that it is strongly opposed to data collection. The AHA rolled out its trial facial recongition technology across

“Having millions of patrons forced to give up their personal details to be monitored should be a last step not a first one – especially with news today of yet another data breach affecting millions of Australians," he said.

“Hotels do not want criminals in venues - and we will work closely with Government, police and the community on common-sense measures which will actually work such as facial recognition to identify and ban criminals,” he said.

“Combined with a lower cash input limit, this will be the most effective way to prevent illegal money being spent in venues.”

Last week the AHA NSW and Clubs NSW announced that facial recognition technology would be rolled out in the gaming areas of hotels and clubs across NSW next year for those choosing to self-exclude from gambling.

Tasmania introduced a mandatory cashless gaming card in September and NSW's first cashless gaming trial commenced at Wests Newcastle in early October, using technology to reduce the risk of gambling harm and to protect again money laundering, according to the Minister for Hospitality and Racing Kevin Anderson.

The technology being trialled is developed by gambling giant Aristocrat Gaming and uses bluetooth to connect to patrons' mobile phones to machines, enabling patrons to transfer money from the gaming wallet to the EGM, take a break, self-exclude and set spending or time limits. Patrons cannot load funds into the gaming wallet from the gaming floor.

The digital wallet is linked to a person's identity before gaming - and their debit card of bank account - which means that authorities can identify where those funds have come from.

There are a number of other trials for NSW which have also been approved with other gaming manufacturers: IGT, Utopia Gaming and Scientific Games.