2053/07 Winners Circle Pty Limited v Liquor Administration Board
JUDGMENT (ex tempore)
1 HIS HONOUR: The plaintiff Winners Circle Group Pty Limited is the holder of an hotelier's licence issued under (NSW) Liquor Act 1982, relating to premises at shop 3.11, 28 Harbour Street, Sydney, in respect of which licence fifteen poker machine entitlements have been allocated under (NSW) Gaming Machines Act 2001. Winners Circle proposes to conduct the business of an hotelier from new premises at 4-10 Goulburn Street, Sydney, some sixty-seven metres from its existing licensed premises at 28 Harbour Street. In order to do so, it proposes to apply to the Licensing Court for removal of the hotelier's licence from the existing licensed premises to the new premises, but it has not yet made that application. Winners Circle also proposes to apply for an authorisation for the keeping of poker machines - or, more correctly, "approved gaming machines" - in respect of the new premises, for which purpose it will be necessary for the poker machine entitlements allocated in respect of its licence also to be transferred to the new premises.
2 Part 5 of the Gaming Machines Act is concerned with administrative controls in relation to gaming machines. Division 1 of that Part governs authorisations to keep or dispose of gaming machines. By s 56(1)(a), an hotelier must not keep an approved gaming machine, unless the keeping of the machine is authorised by the Liquor Administration Board. By subsection (2), the Board may authorise an hotelier to keep approved gaming machines. By subs (3), such an authorisation is one that relates to the total number of approved gaming machines kept in the hotel, as well as to the keeping of a particular approved gaming machine. By subs (4)(a), the total number of approved gaming machines that the Board may authorise to be kept in an hotel from time to time consists of the number of approved poker machines that correspond to the number of poker machine entitlements allocated for the time being in respect of the hotelier's licence, together with certain other numbers of machines. That an authorisation to keep an approved gaming machine depends on the existence of a corresponding poker machine entitlement suggests that the poker machine entitlement must have been allocated in respect of, or transferred to, the relevant hotelier's licence, before an authorisation under s 56 can be granted.