Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello (Image: AAP/Joel Carrett)

Ever since ClubsNSW led the campaign to stymie the 2010 Andrew Wilkie deal with Julia Gillard to curb gambling harm on poker machines through a mandatory pre-commitment scheme, no state or federal government has been prepared to take on Australia’s mighty gambling industry.

This is an industry that has nearly doubled annual revenues to almost $25 billion over the past 15 years; $14 billion of that comes from Australia’s 200,000 poker machines, almost half of which are in New South Wales.

Although Labor has a far greater shame file in explaining how Australians became so heavily fleeced by the gambling industry, it was the NSW Liberals who signed three consecutive pre-election MOUs with ClubsNSW which basically promise to continue to let the industry ran rampant across the state.

However, the game started to change when federal law enforcement agencies raised concerns about extensive money laundering at Crown Resorts in Melbourne and Perth, and then investigative journalist Nick McKenzie unleashed with a hit on 60 Minutes in 2019.

The NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA) had long been regarded as a toothless tiger but it had the power to launch a public judicial inquiry into Crown which proved to be devastating for the company, particularly in relation to a torrent of revelations about blatant money laundering by its high-roller clients.

They don’t call their gambling ministers gambling ministers in NSW, preferring to hide it behind the more politically acceptable racing portfolio.

In April 2019 Victor Dominello took over the gambling portfolio from the predictably compliant National Party MP Paul Toole, who now finds himself as Nationals leader and deputy premier after of John Barilaro’s departure. After Toole, Barilaro and then premier Gladys Berejiklian capitulated with another extraordinary pre-election MOU in October 2018 which protected ClubsNSW from change over the next four years,  it looked  like meaningful reform was a lost cause.

However, it didn’t take Dominello long to become a critic of the industry as the Crown Resorts allegations started to roll in July 2019.

His broader portfolio included customer service and digital transformation, leading him to embrace a mandatory gambling card which would both discourage money laundering and better inform interventions when gamblers were suffering significant harm.

A relationship was built with Australia’s leading gambling reform advocate, Tim Costello, so much so that the former World Vision CEO and older brother of Peter Costello went public on December 9, declaring:

Victor Dominello has been the first minister I’ve worked alongside in my 25 years of campaigning to attempt to proactively address these systemic issues. If he is taken away in the upcoming cabinet reshuffle it will be a telltale sign that the industry, not the premier, is calling the shots.

Alas, it wasn’t enough to save Dominello. He was stripped of his gambling responsibilities in Sunday’s reshuffle after a brutally effective campaign by ClubsNSW. This sparked a savage response from Costello, although at least Dominello remains in cabinet focusing on customer service and digital government.

The new gambling minister without title is Nationals MP Kevin Anderson, who as the minister responsible for “lands, water, hospitality and racing” is expected to ditch the gambling card idea and resume normal compliant service for the industry.

However, that might not be as easy as it sounds after ILGA chairman Philip Crawford publicly called for an independent judicial inquiry into the enormous NSW pokies industry last week and then the little known NSW Crime Commission came out of nowhere to announce its own powerful investigation into club and pub money laundering, a move which was backed by premier Dominic Perrottet.

As for Labor, it remains completely missing in action on gambling reform matters, as usual, presumably as it counts the profits from the $50 million-plus a year that gamblers lose at its six pokie venues in Sydney and Canberra.

Like self-described “clubs man” Michael Daley, Luke Foley before that and even going all the way back to Bob Carr’s crazy 1998 decision to introduce pokies into NSW pubs, current NSW Labor leader Chris Minns appears to be completely captured by the pokies industry, refusing to publicly back Dominello’s push for a gambling card to crack down on criminal money laundering.

NSW gamblers lost a record $630 million to poker machines — excluding Sydney’s Star casino — in November alone. That’s $21 million a day. If that monthly run-rate keeps up, the annualised pub and club losses will hit $7.6 billion in 2022, confirming NSW as the most gambling-saturated jurisdiction in the world.

All it would take is for Perrottet and Minns to have a conversation and agree to a bipartisan approach to long overdue gambling reform. Alas, we’re a long way from that when the pokies industry can seemingly pick and choose which minister will regulate it.

Should NSW introduce a gambling card? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.