licence by licence
Australian casino licensing: a glossary of terms
I keep this list because the words themselves carry the history — a Casino Control Act, a gazettal notice, a temporary licence outliving its expiry date by two years. Fourteen terms, defined once, used the same way on every page of this site.
Casino Control Act
The particular state act under which a casino holds its licence and answers to its regulator — there is no single federal counterpart, meaning the same conduct might pass muster in one state yet fall foul of another.
Gazettal
Formal publication of a licence, regulation or proclamation in a state government gazette — the moment the instrument takes legal effect, distinct from the date it was signed.
Licensing authority
The state authority holding power to issue, amend or withdraw a casino licence. New South Wales shifted this task to a standalone casino regulator, carved out from its broader liquor-and-gaming body, after the Bergin findings.
Temporary casino licence
A licence allowing operation from a makeshift premises while the lasting complex takes shape. The Star ran under such terms from 13 September 1995 until its permanent structure opened on 27 November 1997.
Permanent complex
The purpose-built resort a licence goes on to authorise. In Perth, Burswood Island Casino took exactly this route from day one, and when it opened its doors on 30 December 1985 it stood as the nation's biggest casino of the day.
Gaming machine tax
A state tax on gaming machine revenue, set at different rates for club, hotel and casino machines within the same state — the rate, not player demand alone, decided where machines were installed.
Pokies
The regional Australian term for the cabinet elsewhere called a slot machine. Same equipment, different name, and often a different tax rate depending on the venue class holding it.
A licence is not a plaque on a wall — it is a statute, a gazettal notice, and a compliance file that outlives the operator who first held it.
Slot machine
Mechanical or electronic gaming cabinet accepting coins or credit for a chance outcome — called pokies in Australian usage, without a change in the machine itself.
Machine entitlement
A transferable right, issued by a state, to operate a fixed number of gaming machines at a venue. Entitlements, not open market entry, cap how many cabinets a floor can hold.
Venue-based gambling
Gambling conducted at a licensed physical premises rather than online — the category the states regulate directly, while the Commonwealth handles interactive gambling separately.
Interactive Gambling Act 2001
Federal law that criminalises certain online gambling products being offered to customers within Australia — leaving venue-based gambling to be governed by state statute.
Royal Commission
An official inquiry armed with powers of compulsion. Victoria's version, examining a casino operator and its licence, was conducted by Ray Finkelstein AO QC starting late February 2021.
Bergin Inquiry
The New South Wales inquiry whose findings paved the way for a standalone casino regulator, separated from the wider liquor-and-gaming authority.
Finkelstein Report
The report delivered in October 2021 closing Victoria's Royal Commission into a casino operator and licence — the same inquiry chaired by Finkelstein.
These fourteen terms recur across the site state by state, from the first opening date in 1985 to the reports written after 2021. Where a term needs more context — how a temporary licence becomes a permanent one, or why gazettal dates differ from opening dates — I set that out on the guide page.