A Working Glossary
A Glossary of Australian Casino Licensing Terms
This register arranges fifteen terms into three families, four about licensing, four about the buildings that house a casino, and seven about machines, tables and construction stages.
Licensing terms
These four terms describe how a licence is granted and enforced.
Licence
A casino licence is the specific legal permission a state or territory government grants to one operator to run gaming on a named site.
Referendum
A referendum is a direct public vote a government may hold to decide whether a casino should be permitted at all.
Gaming authority
A gaming authority is the statutory body that issues, monitors and can suspend a casino licence, and it typically also audits the gaming floor and investigates complaints.
Licence conditions
Licence conditions are the specific obligations attached to a licence beyond the general law, covering matters such as minimum investment, staffing levels and reporting duties.
Building terms
These four terms describe the buildings a casino licence covers.
Heritage listing
A heritage listing places a building on an official register because of its historical or architectural significance, which can restrict later alterations to its facade or interior.
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse describes converting an existing building, such as a railway station or a hotel, to a new function without demolishing its original structure.
Purpose-built
A purpose-built casino is designed from its foundations for gaming, hospitality and hotel operations together, in contrast to a casino installed inside a structure originally built for another purpose.
Gaming floor
The gaming floor is the specific licensed area of a casino building set aside for gaming machines and table games, distinct from restaurants, hotel rooms and car parks on the same site.
Machine and table terms
These seven terms cover the machines, the tables and the stages a casino building passes through before opening.
Slot machine
A slot machine is a coin or note operated gaming machine with reels or a video display that a single player operates. It is the term used across most of the English speaking world for the category regulated under a casino or gaming machine licence.
Pokies
Pokies is the informal Australian term for the same category of machine, shortened from poker machines, and it appears throughout Australian gaming legislation alongside the more formal term gaming machine.
Table games
Table games are games conducted at a table by a dealer or a croupier rather than through an automated machine.
Soft opening
A soft opening is a limited or unannounced start to trading, used to test staffing, procedures and equipment before a formal, publicly announced opening follows.
Permanent casino
A permanent casino is the finished building intended for indefinite operation, distinct from any temporary casino a licensee may have used earlier while that building was still under construction.
Temporary casino
A temporary casino is a licensed venue, sometimes a converted existing building, that an operator runs for a defined period while its permanent premises are still being built.
Revenue agreement
A revenue agreement is the contractual arrangement, separate from the licence itself, setting out what share of gaming revenue or what fixed payment an operator owes to government.