By Vanessa Cavasinni, editor Australian Hotelier
Maxgaming has won the competitive bidding process to operate the Centralised Monitoring System (CMS) across gaming machines in New South Wales for a 15-year period.
The period appointed by Liquor & Gaming NSW begins 1 December 2017 and lasts until 30 November 2032. Maxgaming hold the current licence to operate CMS, and will have that extended for one year from 1 December 2016, while the upgraded CMS is installed around the state.
Every gaming machine in New South Wales clubs and pubs must be hooked up to the CMS to calculate taxation on revenue amounts, and to ensure the integrity of the machine’s operation.
Under the new agreement, Maxgaming will pay the NSW Government $209 million for the one-year extension to the current licence and the new 15-year licence. Hotels and clubs with gaming machines will then have to pay Maxgaming a monthly monitoring fee of $43.20 plus GST per gaming machine, with the monthly fee to be indexed to inflation on 1 July of every year.
The new CMS, to be rolled out at the end of 2017, will include upgrades to better monitor the operations of each machine. These upgrades include the power to detect possible money laundering activities and in-venue fraud, and it can also monitor if the machines are being used within the approved times.