Best pokies in Sydney: licensed venues, real rules, and the offshore sites the ACMA says no to

28 October 2026 — data checked against the Australian Communications and Media Authority register and Liquor and Gaming NSW public records.

Sydney is a pokies town in a specific sense. Two casino floors run thousands of machines under state-issued licences; another 87,000-plus machines sit inside the pubs and clubs the rest of the state allows. None of that is online — the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 makes it an offence to provide online casino games or online pokies to anyone in Australia, and the ACMA has spent the best part of a decade blocking, warning and fining the offshore operators who try. The best pokies in Sydney are the licensed venues a Sydneysider can walk into, not a site accessed from a Sydney postcode.

This guide covers what that actually looks like in 2026 — which venues hold a real licence, what identification the front door asks for, how payout rates stack up against other capitals, and the eleven brands the ACMA has formally warned for offering the same product illegally.

Responsible gambling in Sydney: where help actually reaches you

Pokies are built to take money. That is the design, not a quirk of a bad venue, and the rest of this page is written on the assumption the reader understands it. The NSW government runs a support system alongside the gambling industry, and a player who wants to stay in control uses it the same way they would use a seatbelt — routinely, before something has gone wrong.

The National Gambling Helpline is 1800 858 858, free, twenty-four hours a day, with web chat through Gambling Help Online. Liquor and Gaming NSW runs a self-exclusion scheme called ClubSafe for pub and club venues, and a separate Self-Exclusion Order for the casino floors — the two schemes do not automatically cover each other, which matters when a player wants to step away from every machine in the state, not just one type. BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, has been live since August 2023, but it binds only Australian-licensed online and phone wagering services. An offshore casino is not connected to it, and a player registered on BetStop who opens an offshore account has done nothing the scheme can stop.

Anyone in NSW can set a deposit limit, a session time limit, or a full exclusion directly with a venue, and the venue is obliged to honour it. The Independent Casino Commission also publishes loss limits and behaviour-tracking requirements that apply inside the two Sydney casino floors — The Star Sydney and Crown Sydney — and a player who feels the venue is not enforcing its own rules can complain to Liquor and Gaming NSW or, for casino matters, to the Independent Casino Commission. The help exists. It is not advertised with the same enthusiasm as the venues themselves, which is the only reason to flag it first.

Sydney’s land-based pokies venues: where the machines actually are

The state of New South Wales had 87,298 gaming machines outside casinos spread across 2,195 venues in June 2023. That is the working floor of the Sydney pokies scene: tens of thousands of machines in pubs and clubs across the harbour city and its ring of suburbs, two large casino floors at the high end, and not a great deal else. There is no legal online pokies product in Australia, so anyone searching for “best pokies in Sydney” is, in practice, choosing between which licensed room to walk into.

Crown Sydney at Barangaroo

Crown Sydney is the 271-metre, 75-floor tower at Barangaroo on the western edge of the CBD — the tallest habitable building in the city, opened to the public in December 2020. The casino sits among the hotel and residential floors rather than as a standalone gaming hall, and that physical arrangement is part of the licence condition Crown negotiated with the NSW Independent Casino Commission. The building’s location on the harbour makes it the most visually distinctive licensed gaming floor in Australia, but it remains one of two casino licences in Sydney, not a separate market.

Crown Resorts has spent recent years rebuilding its compliance position after a series of inquiries into its Melbourne, Perth and London operations, and Crown Sydney opened at a moment when the regulator was looking unusually closely at the group. The venue runs well below the historical 2,000-plus machine footprint the older Crown floors carry, and the game mix leans toward table games. For a player who specifically wants pokies, Crown Sydney is a Sydney pokies venue, not the densest one.

The Star Sydney at Pyrmont

The Star Sydney, in Pyrmont overlooking Darling Harbour, is Australia’s second-largest casino after Crown Melbourne. Owned by Star Entertainment Group, the complex has two gaming floors, 351 hotel rooms, the 2,000-seat Sydney Lyric theatre and a 3,000-seat Event Centre — a far broader entertainment footprint than Crown’s tower, and a far larger pokies base. The Star has historically carried close to 1,500 machines across its two gaming floors, which is why it sits at the top of any “best pokies in Sydney” list written by someone who counts machines.

The venue’s licence status is the reason it does not always sit comfortably on those lists. On 13 September 2022 the NSW Independent Casino Commission found The Star Sydney unsuitable to hold its casino licence over conduct relating to money-laundering risks, and the operator was fined A$100 million in October 2022. Following that finding the licence was suspended and operations placed under a government-appointed special manager, Nicholas Weeks, with supervision expected to continue through at least September 2025. On 10 February 2025 ASIC sued members of The Star’s former board over failures to track money-laundering risks at the venue. A player walking into The Star Sydney in 2026 walks into a casino under close supervision, with a regulator who has already published the reasons — useful to know for anyone whose reading of “best” includes “a venue whose books an auditor will vouch for”.

Pubs and clubs across the harbour city

The 87,000-plus NSW machines outside casinos run in 2,195 venues, and Sydney’s share of that sits inside the city’s pubs and registered clubs. A registered club is a members’ institution that operates gaming machines under a Club licence — think RSLs, leagues clubs, bowling clubs and the larger suburban hospitality clubs — while a pub runs pokies under a hotel licence subject to its own cap. The two categories look similar at the machine but differ at the door: a club asks for membership before play, a pub does not.

This is where the bulk of Sydney’s pokies play actually happens. The biggest venues, by machine count, sit in the western and southwestern suburbs — places like Mounties, Cabra-Vale Diggers, the Canterbury League Club and the Fairfield District Bowling Club run well over 300 machines each and absorb a meaningful share of the city’s poker-machine turnover. The CBD has fewer machines than the suburbs do, which is why a search for “best pokies in Sydney CBD” often returns the two casino floors and not a great deal else.

Pokies near Sydney Airport

The domestic terminal sits inside Botany Bay, and the surrounding suburbs — Mascot, Eastlakes, Botany, Rockdale — carry a dense cluster of registered clubs and a handful of large pubs. A traveller with a few hours to kill and a search for “pokies near Sydney Airport” will find licensed machines within a short taxi ride, but the airport itself does not host pokies and the licence framework does not make provision for one. NSW pub and club gaming is geography-bound, not transport-bound.

Pokies payments and payout speed in Sydney

Pokies are cash-in, cash-out machines. There is no deposit, no card swipe and no e-wallet handshake at the machine itself — the player buys credits with a banknote or a ticket, and the machine pays out the same way. The “payments and payout speed” question that dominates online casino guides reduces, for a land-based Sydney pokies player, to a much smaller set of practical questions.

How a session actually pays out

A machine pays out by printing a ticket with the credit balance — the standard “TITO” (ticket-in, ticket-out) system now used across NSW. The player walks that ticket to a change booth or a cashier, and the cashier pays cash. The transaction takes as long as the queue takes; there is no processing delay because no payment processor is involved. A$10,000 and above triggers the venue’s standard reporting and identification steps under NSW anti-money-laundering rules, and a player who wins at that level should expect to wait through identification rather than walk out with the cash.

Maximum cash payout

NSW does not set a flat maximum cash payout from a single machine — that is a per-machine figure published in the game’s own specification. The widely repeated “maximum cash payout” question is really a question about which machines in a venue carry the highest credit ceiling, which is a venue-by-venue answer rather than a state-wide rule. Inside The Star Sydney and Crown Sydney, higher-limit machines and premium gaming rooms carry credit ceilings well above what a pub venue will offer, which is why a serious high-roller comparison tends to route through the casino floors rather than the suburban clubs.

Payout percentage: what the machine actually returns

The “best paying pokies in Sydney” question reduces to the return-to-player (RTP) rates the state requires. NSW publishes a minimum RTP of 85% for gaming machines in hotels and clubs, with most venues operating in the 87% to 92% band. South Australia sets a higher statutory floor of 87.5%, with a general maximum bet of A$5.00 outside the casino, and Adelaide Casino itself has no maximum-bet limit. The Star Sydney and Crown Sydney publish RTP figures in line with national casino floors, typically 87% to 95% across their machines, with higher figures on the premium gaming floors.

The honest reading is that the Sydney pub-and-club floor sits at the lower end of that band, the casino floors sit in the middle, and the headline-friendly “best paying pokies” question rarely gives a player more than a percentage point or two of difference between licensed venues in the same city. A player chasing a higher theoretical return is choosing between Adelaide and Sydney more than between two Sydney venues.

The credit-card and crypto ban

Since 11 June 2024, credit cards, credit-related products and digital currency have been banned as payment for licensed online wagering in Australia, with penalties up to A$247,500 for operators who breach the rule. A site that asks an Australian for a credit card or a crypto deposit is operating outside the Australian framework, and the deposit method is itself a flag — the same flag that an ACMA formal warning would carry. For a land-based pokies player the rule does not apply directly, but a venue with an adjacent online wagering counter is bound by it.

Paytables and game specifics at the Sydney casino floors

A pokies “paytable” is the on-screen table that lists what each symbol combination pays, what the bonus features trigger, and what the maximum line win is. The details vary by title rather than by venue — the same Aristocrat game runs on the same paytable at The Star Sydney and at a suburban club — and the question of which game to play is closer to a question about which developer the venue stocks.

The Aristocrat and IGT backbone

The two big international names in Australian pub-and-club pokies are Aristocrat Leisure and International Game Technology (IGT). Aristocrat is an Australian-listed company that built its business on the local pub floor — titles like “Queen of the Nile”, “Indian Dreaming” and the “Lightning Link” series sit in thousands of machines across the state. IGT’s contribution is the international library that has migrated into Australian venues over the last decade. A player walking into a Sydney pub in 2026 is overwhelmingly likely to be looking at an Aristocrat or IGT title.

Crown Sydney’s gaming floor

Crown Sydney’s casino floor runs a higher-end mix — baccarat and table games dominate the gaming floor footprint, with electronic gaming machines concentrated on the upper floors and in private gaming rooms. The pokies range is narrower than at The Star and includes both international progressive titles and Australian-developed Aristocrat content. Crown’s compliance-driven rebuild means the game catalogue is more conservative than the older Australian casino floors; a player chasing a specific title will find Crown’s library smaller than The Star’s.

The Star Sydney’s gaming floor

The Star’s two gaming floors carry the larger pokies footprint of the two Sydney casinos, and the game catalogue reflects that. International progressive titles, the Aristocrat mainstay, IGT content and the larger electronic gaming machine ranges all sit on the same floor, and the venue’s higher turnover supports a wider spread of denominations. The Star has historically run the more aggressive promotional calendar of the two Sydney casino floors, though promotions in NSW are bound by Liquor and Gaming NSW conditions and the venue’s own licence undertakings.

Live tables and electronic table games

Both casino floors run live table games — blackjack, roulette, baccarat, sic bo — alongside their electronic gaming machines. Crown Sydney’s table mix is heavier than its pokies mix, while The Star carries more pokies than Crown does but also runs an extensive electronic table game offering. A player whose “pokies” question is really a question about electronic gaming in general will find both venues run the same suite of products, with the casino floors covering the live-dealer space that the pub-and-club floor cannot.

The eleven offshore brands the ACMA has warned

The ACMA, under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, has issued formal warnings to a long list of offshore operators offering online casino games and online pokies to Australians. The list below covers the eleven brands this guide tracks: every one of them is unlawful for an Australian player to use, every one of them has been the subject of a formal regulator action, and none of them is a “best pokies in Sydney” option in any honest reading of the question.

The table below is what the ACMA itself has published. Where the ACMA has named the operator behind the brand, that name sits in the third column; where the same operator has been warned more than once, the earlier warning date sits beside the more recent one.

Three things stand out in that table. First, the same operator turns up behind several brands: Dama N.V. runs RocketPlay, Level Up, Woo and Spirit, and has been warned in May 2022, March 2025 and May 2025 across that portfolio. Consolutetish S.R.L. runs National Casino and Bizzo, and was warned once for both in July 2025. A warning to one brand is, in practice, a warning to a group — and a player who recognises one of those names on a new site is looking at the same operator behind a rebrand.

Second, the ACMA’s enforcement window keeps widening. The earliest warning in this set dates to September 2022; the latest to April 2026. A “block and rebrand” pattern is visible across the table — RocketPlay was warned as part of the May 2022 Dama N.V. action, then warned again in March 2026 as Pulsup Ltd, after the brand changed hands. The same pattern runs through Bizzo, which the ACMA warned as TechSolutions in 2022 and again as Consolutetish S.R.L. in 2025.

Third, the table is a roster, not a comparison. There is no honest reading on which one of these eleven sites is a safer place for a Sydneysider to deposit. The product they offer is prohibited under Australian law, and the ACMA has acted against every one of them. A player who recognises any of these names on a current site is reading a rebrand of the same operator.

How the shortlist of Sydney pokies venues is actually built

A “top eleven” comparison is only useful if the criteria are visible, and the criteria for licensed pokies venues in Sydney are not the criteria an offshore site comparison would use. The list below is the working set the rest of this page leans on.

Licence status

The first criterion is whether the venue holds a real NSW licence to run gaming machines — a casino licence for The Star Sydney and Crown Sydney, or a club or hotel licence for the pub-and-club floor. A venue without that licence is not on the list, regardless of how many machines it advertises. The same rule takes an offshore site off the list: there is no Australian licence that covers online casino games or online pokies.

Venue footprint and machine count

The second criterion is the size of the gaming footprint. The Star Sydney carries close to 1,500 machines across its two gaming floors, the largest in Sydney. Crown Sydney runs fewer, with a table-heavy mix. The biggest Sydney clubs — Mounties, Cabra-Vale Diggers, Canterbury League Club, Fairfield District Bowling Club — run between 300 and 500 machines each, on a smaller floor but with higher density per square metre.

Compliance and supervisory record

The third criterion is the venue’s compliance record. The Star Sydney’s A$100 million fine, the special manager appointed in 2022, the ASIC board lawsuit filed in February 2025, and the supervision period expected to run through September 2025 are all on the public record. Crown Sydney opened under an unusually close regulatory regime after its own compliance rebuild, and the result is a quieter compliance position. The pub-and-club floor sits under Liquor and Gaming NSW’s standard supervisory regime.

Game mix and denomination

The fourth criterion is what the player actually plays. The Star’s mix runs international progressive titles, Aristocrat, IGT and electronic table games; Crown’s mix is narrower and more conservative; the club floor runs the Aristocrat-and-IGT backbone that defines the Australian pub-and-club experience. The denomination range matters for a player with a small bankroll — a club venue with A$0.01 credit lines is a different proposition from a casino floor running A$1 and above.

Payout rate and bet limit

The fifth criterion is RTP and bet limit. NSW’s 85% statutory floor is well below South Australia’s 87.5%; the casino floors run higher RTP figures than the pub-and-club floor; and Adelaide Casino’s no-maximum-bet rule inside the venue contrasts with NSW’s A$5 cap outside it. A player who is choosing between Sydney and Adelaide on RTP grounds is making a real comparison; a player choosing between two Sydney venues on the same grounds is looking at a small spread.

Responsible-gaming support

The sixth criterion is the venue’s own responsible-gaming infrastructure. The casino floors run the full suite — self-exclusion orders, behaviour tracking, loss limits under the Independent Casino Commission’s requirements. The pub-and-club floor runs ClubSafe and venue-level exclusion. A venue without a working exclusion process is not on this list.

The Sydney pokies landscape, ranked

The list below ranks the venues a Sydneysider can walk into, in the order the criteria above actually support. It is a comparison of licensed options, not a recommendation — the reader is choosing where to go, and the page is pointing out what each option actually offers.

1. The Star Sydney

The largest pokies footprint in Sydney, the most extensive game mix, and the most aggressive promotional calendar of the licensed venues in the city. The Star’s compliance record is the heaviest asterisk against it: A$100 million fine, special manager in place, ASIC action against former board members. A player whose “best” prioritises footprint and game selection puts The Star first; a player whose “best” includes regulatory cleanliness puts it lower.

2. Crown Sydney

The newest Sydney casino floor, opened in December 2020 in the city’s tallest building. A smaller pokies footprint than The Star, a heavier table-game mix, and a quieter compliance position after the group’s own rebuild. A player who wants the Sydney casino experience without The Star’s compliance overhang sits comfortably at Crown.

3. Mounties (Mount Pritchard)

One of the largest registered clubs in NSW by machine count, sitting in Sydney’s southwestern suburbs. Heavy Aristocrat and IGT content, the standard club-floor experience, and a venue that runs the same Liquor and Gaming NSW supervisory regime as every other licensed club in the state. A player in the western suburbs who wants the highest machine count within a single club venue finds it here.

4. Cabra-Vale Diggers

A second large southwestern Sydney club with a comparable machine count to Mounties. The same game mix, the same supervisory regime, and a venue that competes with Mounties on promotional calendar. A player choosing between the two is choosing between two well-run suburban clubs rather than between two materially different products.

5. Canterbury League Club

Another large southwestern Sydney club, in the Canterbury-Bankstown area. Comparable machine count, comparable game mix, comparable regime. The three big southwestern clubs (Mounties, Cabra-Vale Diggers, Canterbury) effectively form a single tier of suburban pokies venues, and a player choosing among them is choosing on geography rather than on product.

6. Fairfield District Bowling Club

A fourth southwestern club, smaller than the top three but still a substantial machine footprint. The bowling-club framing puts it in a slightly different hospitality bracket than the leagues clubs, and the gaming floor reflects that. A player in the Fairfield area who wants a club venue with a broader hospitality offering finds it here.

7. The Star Event Centre and Lyric precinct

The non-gaming entertainment anchor of The Star Sydney — the 2,000-seat Lyric theatre and the 3,000-seat Event Centre — does not run pokies itself, but it sits inside the same complex and gives a player who arrives for a show the option to use the gaming floor before or after. The framing matters: a reader who has heard of “The Star” as a venue often means the complex rather than the gaming floor.

8. Eastlakes and Botany clubs

The cluster of registered clubs around Sydney Airport — Eastlakes, Mascot, Botany, Rockdale — gives a traveller with time to kill a licensed pokies option within a short taxi ride. The machine counts are smaller than the southwestern clubs, but the locations are denser for an airport-based reader.

9. RSL and leagues clubs in the inner west and CBD

The inner west and CBD carry a thinner licensed club footprint than the suburbs do. A reader searching for “pokies in Sydney CBD” will find licensed clubs within reach but not at the machine counts the suburbs offer. The Star and Crown both sit close enough to the CBD to absorb that demand; the licensed clubs in the inner-city band serve a smaller player base.

10. Suburban pubs with gaming machine licences

A long tail of suburban pubs run pokies under hotel licences. The machine counts per venue are smaller than the clubs — typically 20 to 50 machines — but the geographic spread is wider, and a reader who wants a venue within walking distance will often find a pub option before a club option. The pub floor sits under the same NSW supervisory regime as the clubs.

11. Sydney’s regional club circuit

The greater Sydney region — the Central Coast, the Illawarra, the Blue Mountains, the Hawkesbury — carries a further ring of licensed clubs and pubs that a Sydney-based reader can reach for a day trip. The same regime applies, the same game mix runs, and a player who wants to combine a regional visit with pokies play has the same options as a player who stays in the city.

Legality and the offshore question

The Interactive Gambling Act 2001, strengthened by the Interactive Gambling Amendment Act 2017, makes it an offence to provide online casino games, online pokies or in-play betting to a person physically in Australia. No state or territory licenses online casino games; the only online products an Australian can lawfully use are wagering on races and sport placed before the event, lotteries, and keno. The minimum age is 18.

What the ACMA does

The Australian Communications and Media Authority investigates complaints, issues formal warnings to operators, and directs Australian internet service providers to block illegal sites. As of June 2026 the ACMA had asked ISPs to block 1,751 illegal gambling and affiliate marketing websites since the first blocking request in November 2019, and more than 230 unlicensed gambling services had left the Australian market since enforcement was strengthened in 2017. A single June 2026 blocking round named twelve sites in one instruction: 7Signs, ChromaBet, Donbet, Duospin, Freshbet, Slots Gem, Jacks Club, Lucky Start, Pointsbetz, Spinrise, Vinyl Casino and Wildsino.

The arithmetic behind that headline number matters. Between November 2019 and June 2026 the ACMA moved from the first blocking instruction to its 1,751st blocked site, across roughly seven years. That is a running average of around 250 blocked sites per year, or roughly five per week — a steady enforcement rhythm rather than a one-off sweep. The blocking rate has not been linear: the early years carried smaller rounds as the IGA framework was being tested, the middle years carried the bulk of the action, and the recent rounds sit closer to twenty or thirty sites per month as the offshore market has fragmented. A reader who treats “blocked” as a one-time event misses what the figure actually describes.

What an offshore site does not give a player

The Interactive Gambling Act targets the provider, not the player. An Australian punter is not prosecuted for using an offshore site. What the punter gives up is the Australian consumer protection framework — no Australian complaints body, no Australian recourse if a withdrawal is refused, no Australian supervision of the operator’s solvency, and the live possibility that the site will be blocked mid-session with a balance still on it. A$3.9 billion a year leaves Australia through illegal gambling sites according to H2 Gambling Capital’s 2025 estimate, and the share of gambling going through legal channels fell from 74% in 2021 to 64%.

What is licensed, and where

The Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission regulates 52 of Australia’s online bookmakers — including Sportsbet, Bet365 and Ladbrokes — which are licensed in the Territory for tax reasons. The commission has no full-time staff and meets once a month in Darwin; the regulator behind the largest Australian-licensed online wagering brands is, in practice, a part-time body. A reader who treats “Australian licensed” as a strong protection should know what the regulator’s actual footprint is.

Payment rules

Credit cards, credit-related products and digital currency have been banned as payment for licensed online wagering since 11 June 2024, with penalties up to A$247,500 for operators. Legal deposit routes for licensed wagering are debit card, bank transfer, PayID/Osko and BPAY. An offshore site asking an Australian for a credit card or a crypto deposit is operating outside the Australian rules, and the deposit method is itself a flag.

The 2026 reform

The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 passed Parliament on 19 August 2026. Its advertising and inducement measures commence on 1 January 2027 — law with a start date, not yet in force on a page published in 2026. A reader who sees the bill cited as a current restriction is reading a future commencement, not an enforceable rule.

Tax

Gambling winnings of a recreational player are not assessable income under section 6-5 of the ITAA 1997, and losses are not deductible. The exception is a person who carries on a business of gambling, which is the ATO’s carve-out, not the rule. A casual Sydney punter has no tax event on a pokies win; a professional gambler should be checking with the ATO.

Frequently asked questions

Which venues in Sydney are licensed to operate pokies?

Two casino floors — Crown Sydney at Barangaroo and The Star Sydney at Pyrmont — hold casino licences issued by the NSW Independent Casino Commission. Around 87,000 additional machines run in 2,195 NSW pubs and registered clubs under Liquor and Gaming NSW hotel and club licences. Any venue running pokies in Sydney sits in one of those three categories; nothing else is licensed for the activity.

Are pokies in Sydney available around the clock?

The casino floors at Crown Sydney and The Star Sydney run extended hours and are typically open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, subject to licence conditions. Pub and club gaming hours are governed by the venue’s hotel or club licence and Liquor and Gaming NSW rules — most suburban pubs and clubs close their gaming floor in the early hours of the morning, and many close it on weekday mornings. A reader who specifically needs late-night access is choosing between the two casino floors and a small number of large clubs with extended gaming hours.

What identification do venues in Sydney require before letting someone play pokies?

Every licensed venue in NSW must check identification before entry to the gaming floor. The casino floors require photo identification at the door and conduct full member enrolment; the pub and club floor requires photo identification at the door and, in the case of registered clubs, proof of membership or temporary membership. A$10,000 and above in machine payouts triggers the venue’s standard reporting and identification procedures under NSW anti-money-laundering rules.

Can visitors to Sydney use self-exclusion schemes at local pokies venues?

Yes — visitors can self-exclude at any NSW venue. ClubSafe covers pubs and clubs; a separate Self-Exclusion Order covers the casino floors. The two schemes do not automatically cover each other, and a visitor who wants to step away from every machine in the state should lodge separate exclusions. BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, has been live since August 2023 but binds only Australian-licensed online and phone wagering services, not the casino floors and not the pub-and-club floor.

How does the payout percentage on Sydney pokies compare with other Australian cities?

NSW sets a minimum gaming-machine return-to-player rate of 85%, with most pub and club venues operating in the 87% to 92% band. The Sydney casino floors run in the 87% to 95% band. South Australia sets a higher statutory floor of 87.5% and a general maximum bet of A$5.00 outside the casino, with Adelaide Casino itself subject to no maximum-bet limit. A reader chasing the highest theoretical return is comparing Sydney and Adelaide more than comparing two Sydney venues.

Is it legal for an online casino to advertise “pokies” in Sydney the same way a pub or club does?

No. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 makes it an offence to provide online casino games or online pokies to a person in Australia, and the ACMA has issued formal warnings to eleven different brands offering the same product. The “pokies” label an offshore site uses to attract Australian traffic is the product the regulator says the site cannot lawfully provide. A pub or club advertising its gaming floor is operating under an NSW hotel or club licence; an offshore site advertising “pokies” to Australians is operating under no Australian licence at all.