For pub club and casino staff
What management can do
As management, you have legal responsibilities and a duty of care both to your patrons and to your staff. We can give you some guidelines. (138 of 153 chars)
Of course, your venue has a legal responsibility to minimise gambling harm, but there may be many more ways that you can support the wellbeing of your patrons and your community. We can help you go above and beyond.
How your venue can go above and beyond
Every venue and every community is different, so it helps to have multiple, different and appropriate strategies in place. (These suggestions don’t replace or add to your current legislative or regulatory requirements.)
We’ve come up with examples. Some may be more practical for your venue than others. They’re a good place to start if you’re committed to reducing gambling harm and demonstrating your commitment to the wellbeing of your patrons and your community.
Start with a plan
- Develop a Gaming Plan of Management that identifies your responsible conduct of gambling (RCG) obligations and goals and what you’re doing to meet them.
Provide staff with additional training and resources
- Hold regular in-house training and refreshers on your policies and procedures.
- Hold training or offer resources on the signs of risky and problematic gambling behaviour.
- Hold training on communication skills to support staff to approach patrons identified as at risk.
Support staff to identify and assist patrons who need help
- Have a strong presence of supervisors in gaming rooms.
- Provide feedback on the action taken by managers when an issue is reported.
- Have structured systems for staff to do welfare checks, encourage breaks in play and suggest alternatives to gambling available in the venue or beyond.
- Increase welfare checks and patron interactions after midnight to encourage breaks in play.
Create a strong culture of gambling harm minimisation
- Make it clear to staff that patron welfare is of the utmost importance.
- Discuss harm minimisation at all staff meetings and handovers.
- Maintain a Gambling Incident Register to record RCG-related incidents and the actions taken to address them.
- Recognise staff who demonstrate a commitment to harm minimisation.
- Appoint dedicated staff (such as a Responsible Gambling Manager or Gambling Contact Officer) to provide specialist support to staff and patrons.
Encourage breaks in play through venue and service design
- Don’t provide complimentary food and snacks at gaming machines.
- Don’t provide food or drink service at gaming machines.
- Place ATMs as far from the gaming room as practical.
- Reduce the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from the ATMs in your venue.
Promote local support services
- Display information about local support services in strategic locations, like the bathroom and on digital displays.
- Promote local support services in direct marketing to patrons and members.
- Host on-site visits from gambling counsellors.
- Organise periodic on-site information stalls staffed by gambling counsellors.
Break down the stigma associated with gambling problems
- Promote gambling awareness campaigns in your venue and your marketing.
- Promote and hold events during relevant awareness weeks.
- Consider promoting or hosting local speakers with lived experience of gambling harm.
Make sure self-exclusion is understood, available and enforced
- Initiate self-exclusion when requested, regardless of the day or time.
- Have strong systems for staff to familiarise themselves with photos of people who have self-excluded.
- Proactively talk to patrons about self-exclusion during welfare checks.
- Consider technology solutions to prevent breaches, such as facial recognition technology through your CCTV or your sign-in systems
Promote responsible gambling
- Include responsible gambling messages on your website, in newsletters and in loyalty program marketing.
- Share responsible gambling messages over the public address system and on electronic displays.
Enable and respond to patron complaints
- Provide information on how to make a complaint about RCG.
- Have a robust patron complaint policy in place with specific arrangements for RCG-related complaints.
- Make staff and patrons aware of how to report a breach in legislative and regulatory requirements to Liquor and Gaming NSW.
