The RGO Mandate: A Closer Look

Effective from July 1, 2024, clubs and hotels in NSW with more than 20 gaming machines must appoint at least one RGO during operational hours. These officers are not mere observers; they are guardians of responsible gambling practices. With the introduction of the RGO role, the focus will change from a player putting up their hand if they feel they are having trouble with their play levels, to the club or pub being responsible for identifying players that may be having issues and proactively assisting them.

The RGO role extends beyond compliance—it’s about fostering a safe and enjoyable gaming environment. The RGOs will need to engage with patrons, to listen, and to proactively detect signs of potential harm. It requires that the RGOs have both a higher level of training in identifying problem gambling behaviours and have the emotional intelligence to deal with players in a way that avoids embarrassment, incorrect assumptions, and judgement.

Advanced training and a useful tool to help RGOs do their jobs properly is a minimum expectation to assist gaming floor staff in clubs and hotels from July 1.

Sint’s new PlayTrax™ gambling behaviour tracking tool is designed to assist with gaming machine-based alerts so that RGOs don’t miss what can often be minimally visible signs of escalating gambling behaviour.

Precision Metrics for Informed Decision-Making

Compliance with player harm minimisation regulations is non-negotiable. PlayTrax, works independently from your gaming system, and uses multiple imbedded algorithms to determine gaming behavioural benchmarks.

It takes the guesswork out of this critical aspect by providing gaming machine alerts to identify:

• Carded / non-carded time at the machine.
• Carded accumulated time at multiple machines.
• Carded / non-carded one-off loss percentage.
• Risk based alerts – amber / red levels.
• Alerts notified through pager, app or email.

Can’t an RGO do the job without the machine alerts?

A large Sydney-based club (200+ machines) already using PlayTrax and with RGO’s on their gaming floor ahead of the regulation change, proved that the PlayTrax machine driven alerts assist the RGO’s by monitoring patterns and thresholds of gaming play that are often not visible while moving around the floor. In fact, the club had 78 accurate alerts through PlayTrax in one day last weekend, many that were missed by the RGOs.

Both the club’s management team, and the RGOs, were surprised at the number of accurate PlayTrax alerts they received based on what they thought they were observing manually.

For this club and their RGOs, PlayTrax proved that data led alerts, coupled with evidence based responses, was an effective working tool to support the RGOs in doing their job appropriately and ensuring the club meets their compliance obligations.

For clubs and pubs in NSW responsible gambling is no longer a buzzword—it’s a shared responsibility. Investigate how PlayTrax can help your RGOs.

Call Jason Drew at Sint Group – Phone:  1300 175 994