Why are pokies legal in pubs and clubs is a question that surfaces often, especially as harm minimisation debates intensify. The short answer is that Australian state governments made deliberate licensing decisions, mostly between the 1980s and 1990s, to allow gaming machines outside of casinos. Those decisions created a licensing and regulatory structure that still governs every poker machine you see in a pub or registered club today. Understanding that structure matters, because the law doesn't just permit pokies: it shapes every condition under which they operate.
The state-by-state licensing framework
Australia has no single national pokies law. Each state and territory controls its own gaming machine regime, and the rules differ sharply. New South Wales has the highest concentration of gaming machines outside of Nevada and Macau. Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia each licence machines under their own legislation. The Northern Territory and Tasmania operate smaller markets with different licence structures again. Western Australia is the notable outlier: gaming machines are restricted to the Burswood casino in Perth and are not available in pubs or clubs at all.
As explained in detail in our article on pokies laws in Australia, this patchwork exists because gambling regulation is a state power under the Australian Constitution. The federal government has no direct authority to ban or permit pokies in venues; that authority sits with state parliaments. When states chose to extend gaming machine licences to pubs and registered clubs, they were exercising that power, and generating substantial tax revenue at the same time.
How did pokies get into pubs and clubs?
New South Wales was the first jurisdiction to allow gaming machines in registered clubs, doing so in 1956. Pubs followed later. The original rationale was to channel gambling into licensed, supervised environments rather than illegal backroom operations. Registered clubs, in particular, were seen as community organisations: RSLs, bowls clubs, and sporting associations that would return gaming profits to their members and broader communities. That social compact became the political justification for a licence class that no other country had replicated at scale.
Victoria liberalised its gaming machine laws in 1991, allowing machines into pubs and clubs under a duopoly model that divided the market between two licensed operators. Queensland and South Australia followed their own paths through the 1990s. By 2000, gaming machines in non-casino venues had become a fixture of Australian social life and state revenue streams.
What makes it legal: the licence, not the machine
A pub or club doesn't simply buy a gaming machine and plug it in. It must hold a gaming machine licence (or an entitlement, depending on the state) granted by the relevant gaming regulator. In NSW, that regulator is Liquor & Gaming NSW. Each venue is allocated a set number of machine entitlements. Entitlements can be bought, sold, and transferred between venues, subject to regulatory approval and a capped total for the state. That cap is the government's primary supply-side control on the number of machines in circulation.
The venue must also comply with ongoing obligations: approved hours of operation, mandatory signage, harm minimisation measures, and staff training requirements. Machines themselves must be approved to a technical standard set by the regulator before they can be installed. A machine that isn't on the approved list is an illegal gaming machine, regardless of what it looks like. The legality of pokies in pubs and clubs rests entirely on this layered licence structure, not on some inherent lawfulness of the device.
Revenue and political durability
Gaming machine taxes represent a significant share of state revenue. NSW collected over $2 billion in gaming machine tax from clubs and hotels in the 2023–2024 financial year. Victoria's take is comparable. Those figures explain a great deal about why the legal status of pokies in venues has proven so resistant to change, despite sustained public health advocacy. Any government looking to substantially reduce or prohibit gaming machines in pubs and clubs faces an immediate revenue problem as well as fierce opposition from the licensed club sector.
Registered clubs also employ large numbers of people and provide community services that state governments are reluctant to disrupt. The legal framework is not just about gambling regulation; it's entangled with hospitality licensing, employment law, and community services funding in ways that make simple prohibition politically difficult.
Harm minimisation obligations that exist right now
Being legal doesn't mean being unregulated. Venues that hold gaming machine licences carry meaningful legal obligations designed to reduce harm. These include mandatory pre-commitment systems in some states, requirements to display responsible gambling information, and obligations to intervene when a patron shows signs of distress. Staff can be held liable if they serve alcohol to someone who is visibly intoxicated and also gambling. Self-exclusion registers give individuals the ability to ban themselves from nominated venues.
Our article on responsible gambling laws in Australia covers these obligations in full, including the specific duties that fall on venue operators and what happens when those duties are breached. Breaches can result in licence suspension, significant fines, or both.
Cashless gaming and ongoing reform
The legal framework around pokies in venues is not static. NSW introduced mandatory cashless gaming requirements that phase in over 2024 and 2025, linking every machine to a player card and creating a digital transaction record for every spin. The stated aims are harm reduction and anti-money-laundering compliance. The practical effect is that the anonymous cash-in, cash-out model that has defined Australian pokies for decades is being wound back by law.
Federal pressure on states has also intensified, with the National Cabinet discussing a consistent national approach to gaming machine reform. No uniform national standard exists yet, but the direction of travel is toward tighter conditions rather than broader access. The legal foundation, state licences issued under state law, isn't going away. What's changing is the content of those licences and the conditions attached to them.
What this means in practice
Pokies are legal in pubs and clubs because Australian states created licensing frameworks that permit them, and those frameworks have been renewed and refined through successive parliaments for decades. The law doesn't treat a gaming machine in a pub as inherently legal: it treats a gaming machine in a licensed venue, operated by a licence holder, to approved technical standards, as lawful. Remove any part of that chain and the machine is illegal. That distinction matters if you're a venue operator, a patron with questions about your rights, or anyone trying to understand why reform is slower than advocates would like.
Ann Valos Criminal Law advises on gaming law matters, including regulatory compliance issues and criminal liability arising from unlicensed gaming. If you have questions about how gambling law applies to your circumstances, contact our team directly.