Editorial log
Journal: Notes on Recent Changes
This journal records, in date order, the corrections issued against entries elsewhere in this record, together with the smaller additions and reviews that a reference work of this kind accumulates as readers write in with questions.
Each entry states plainly what changed and why, since a reference work earns trust by showing its workings rather than only its conclusions.
Four entries, in brief
- 14 MAR 2026
Correction: Casino Canberra's licence conditions
Vague wording tightened to state the table-games-only floor directly.
- 02 MAY 2026
Worth a closer look: a state gaming authority's annual report
A primary source flagged for readers going further, not summarised here.
- 19 JUN 2026
Glossary: temporary and permanent licences
A new entry added after a reader asked about the distinction.
- 30 JUL 2026
Reviewed: the Wrest Point heritage-listing wording
An imprecise phrase corrected after a reader query.
14 March 2026
Correction: Casino Canberra's licence conditions
An earlier version of the entry for Casino Canberra described its licence only as unusual among Australian casinos, without stating in what respect the arrangement differs from every other property in this record, and a reader who compared it against the entries for Crown Melbourne and The Star could reasonably have concluded that the difference was one of scale or ownership rather than of the gaming floor itself.
Casino Canberra opened on 29 July 1994 under a licence that permits table games only, with no gaming-machine floor anywhere on the premises, a condition that has held since opening and that no other Australian casino licence shares, and the entry has now been rewritten to state this plainly in its first sentence rather than leaving it implied by a general word such as unusual.
This is a small change in length but a meaningful one in precision, since a reference work earns its use by saying exactly what a licence permits rather than gesturing at a difference and trusting the reader to guess its shape, and the correction has been logged here rather than made silently, in keeping with the practice this journal exists to follow.
Wording, before and after
- Before: described as "unusual among Australian casinos," without saying in what respect.
- After: states plainly that the licence permits table games only, with no gaming-machine floor on the premises.
2 May 2026
Worth a closer look: a state gaming authority's annual report
Readers who want to go beyond what this record covers should know that the gaming and liquor regulator in the state that first put a casino licence to public vote publishes an annual report each year, and that report is a primary document in a way that secondary accounts, including this one, are not.
This note exists only to point toward it, not to describe what is inside it, since summarising a regulator's own figures and calling the summary new research would blur the line between a reference entry and original reporting, and this record does not claim to conduct the latter. A careful reader following licensing, staffing or compliance in more depth than a building-by-building register can offer would do better reading the primary document directly than trusting any digest of it published elsewhere, this one included.
No claim from that report is reproduced here, and none will be until it has been read in full and checked against the entries it might affect, since a pointer added in haste is more likely to mislead than to help, and this entry will be revised once that reading has taken place, most likely by amending specific entries rather than by expanding this note.
19 June 2026
Glossary: temporary and permanent licences
A reader wrote in after noticing that two entries in this record, for Crown Melbourne and for The Star in Sydney, each mention a temporary casino operating before a permanent building opened, and asked what practical difference a temporary licence carries beyond the obvious fact of a less finished building.
The glossary previously defined a casino licence only in general terms, without addressing this distinction at all, so a short new entry has been added rather than folding the explanation into either casino's own page, since the pattern recurs across states and belongs with the other defined terms.
Temporary licence
Permits gaming to begin, and revenue to start, in a purpose-adapted interim building while the intended permanent structure is still under construction, as at Crown Melbourne from 1994 and at The Star in Sydney from 13 September 1995.
Permanent licence
Replaces the temporary arrangement once the purpose-built complex is complete and passes inspection, as happened at The Star on 27 November 1997, and typically carries in full the conditions, such as floor area or table counts, that the temporary licence held only provisionally.
The new entry keeps to this distinction and does not attempt to describe every state's procedure for the handover, since conditions vary enough between jurisdictions that a single glossary line covering all of them would flatten differences worth keeping separate, a decision consistent with how this record treats licensing detail generally, in outline rather than in full statute.
30 July 2026
Reviewed: the Wrest Point heritage-listing wording
A reader pointed out that the entry describing Wrest Point's heritage listing used the phrase "the first casino in Australia," which drops the word legal and so reads as though no gambling establishment existed anywhere on the continent before 1973, a claim this record has never intended to make and cannot support.
Doors opened at Sandy Bay on 10 February 1973, some four years after Tasmanian electors had settled the matter at a referendum on 14 December 1968 by the slenderest of margins, fifty-three per cent in favour. Readers are asked to weigh the qualifier carefully, because a licensed room was a genuine novelty in a country where wagering itself had never been scarce.
The heritage listing itself has attracted argument since it was made, over whether a building whose significance rests on gambling belongs on a register meant to preserve architectural and civic memory, and the entry now states that disagreement plainly instead of presenting the listing as uncontested.
The wording has been corrected throughout the relevant paragraph, not only in the sentence the reader quoted, since the same imprecise shorthand had been repeated further down where it described the building's later inclusion in tourist material referencing the listing, and no new information was added in this pass, only a tightening of a claim that had drifted further from its documented basis than intended.