How NSW’s GambleAware Funding Boost Could Shift the Ground on Gambling Harm?

Key Points

• New South Wales has added AU$1.3 million in annual funding to GambleAware, opening the door to a 44% growth in service locations and the addition of five peer support workers.
• The move follows an independent evaluation that confirmed GambleAware runs well but flagged the need for more community engagement, peer support, and operational resources leading directly to this investment.
• This funding is part of a plan covering gaming machine restrictions, venue compliance, ATM limits, mandatory shutdown periods, and new self-exclusion options.

Most people who think about gambling reform picture tighter rules on venues and machines. What receives far less attention is what happens after the harm has already taken root whether people can find real help when they are ready to ask for it. That gap is now getting real attention from the New South Wales government. The decision to put more money into GambleAware reflects an understanding that dealing with gambling harm means more than enforcement: it means giving people a way back.

GambleAware Gets the Funding to Reach Far More People Across New South Wales

The Minns Labor Government has confirmed an extra AU$1.3 million in annual funding for GambleAware, which serves as New South Wales’ main provider of gambling harm support. The funding targets front-line services, peer support growth, and better access for communities across the state.

Off the back of this investment, GambleAware will extend its presence by 44%, going from 34 locations to 49, with 15 of the new sites sitting in regional and rural areas. Five more peer support workers will become part of the team, thus making up 16 individuals in total within the category.

This extension comes alongside a system offering free counselling, financial advice, peer support, and crisis assistance 24 hours a day to all individuals affected by gambling problems themselves or through their close relations.

In 2024-2025, GambleAware served 4,170 clients, conducted more than 19,000 counselling sessions, and made more than 9,500 crisis call responses.

The funding decision was made following the results of the assessment of the quality of the work of GambleAware, which revealed highly efficient services and identified certain areas for development. The gaps came down to community engagement, peer support numbers, and operating costs that kept climbing.

Minister for Gaming and Racing David Harris said:

“That’s why we have responded with a funding boost of $1.3 million for the coming year.”

Explaining the thinking behind the investment, he said:

“The Minns Labor Government is laser-focused on preventing and responding to gambling harm, which can have a devastating impact on the relatively small number of people it impacts, along with their loved ones.”

On access, Harris added:

“GambleAware is an important gambling harm minimisation service that provides a range of access options to ensure people can get confidential help any time in the way they feel most comfortable.”

Peer Support Workers Are Now at the Heart of What GambleAware Is Building

The government put forward Dean Dries, a Proud Wiradjuri man working as a GambleAware peer support worker in Northern Sydney and the Central Coast, as someone who shows what this model can mean in practice. In his own words, Dries shared:

“Recovery is not easy… I want to give back to the community and let them know they’re not alone, there are people who care about them and there is hope.”

Six organisations were also awarded contracts through a competitive tender to continue delivering GambleAware services across 10 New South Wales regions.

The providers are Wesley Community Services, Regional Community Care, Armidale CentaCare New England North West, Mission Australia, Uniting, and St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney.

Contracts run for three years and carry options for two further years of extension. The financial terms of individual agreements were not released publicly.

The GambleAware Boost Is Part of Something the Minns Government Has Been Building for a While

The above funding of GambleAware is part of a broader package of interventions that the Minns administration has introduced in order to minimise the negative impacts of gambling in New South Wales.

The budgetary allocation for the Responsible Gambling Fund will reach AU$20.7 million for 2025/2026 from AU$19.2 million in the previous fiscal year.

Since coming into power, the administration has made reductions in the number of gaming machines by more than 3,000, reduced the cash load of new gaming machines from $5,000 to $500, and gone to a stage where approximately 56% of the existing machines operate within the $500 level.

Venues running more than 20 gaming machines now require responsible gambling officers on site. Mandatory gambling incident registers and venue gaming management plans have come into force, ATMs near gaming areas face placement restrictions to encourage breaks in play, and external gambling signage has been banned.

There is more. Late-night poker machine exemptions no longer exist. Electronic gaming machines face mandatory shutdowns between 4 am and 10 am. Facial recognition technology is being developed. A statewide exclusion register is being built to give self-exclusion programmes more force. Transport for NSW assets including trains, metro lines, buses, light rail, stations, and ferry terminals are now subject to a total ban on gambling advertisements.

The Australian government put forward gambling advertising reforms earlier this year, building on recommendations that came out of the Murphy Report. A watershed ban on television gambling advertisements and limits on celebrities in gambling marketing are among the changes proposed.

When she announced those reforms, Minister Anika Wells called them the “strongest in Australia’s history.”

The UK branch of GambleAware has pushed policymakers to think about restrictions of a similar kind, covering casino and slot marketing controls, and placing limits on influencers, celebrities, and tipsters connected to gambling operators.

Expert Insight: Why the Industry, Operators, and Policymakers All Need to Pay Attention to This

Roughly 20% of people who enter Alcohol and Other Drugs treatment programmes are found to meet clinical criteria for high-risk gambling, making the overlap between these two issues far bigger than most people would expect. To map this more clearly, the state is directing money into academic research through its 2025–2028 Gambling Research Capacity Grants. A three-year field study at Western Sydney University is tracking gambling comorbidities in emergency departments. Alongside that, a University of Sydney study running until June 2028 is using objective customer account data to follow player behaviour before and after mandatory carded play was introduced at NSW casinos.