Best casino in Sydney in 2026: where to go, what to play, and what the ACMA has been blocking offshore

The first thing to settle on a question like this is what the word “casino” actually refers to in Sydney. There is one landmark gaming floor at Pyrmont, and there is the newer Barangaroo tower with its own restricted gaming space inside a hotel. The rest of the Australian market the phrase “online casino” pulls up — the offshore sites that advertise during local sport — has no licence to take a bet from anyone physically in Australia. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 says so, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority has been enforcing it by asking internet providers to block sites at a steady clip since late 2019. This page walks through what is on offer at the licensed venues, the rooftop bars and restaurants around them, the table games worth booking in for, and the offshore brands Australians keep seeing in marketing — with the ACMA actions attached to each.

Currency stamp: data current as of 28 October 2026, with the ACMA’s blocking register, the NSW Independent Casino Commission findings, and Star Entertainment Group’s filings cross-checked.

Sydney’s two licensed casino properties at a glance

Two operators hold casino licences inside the Sydney basin. They are not in competition in any ordinary commercial sense — Crown Sydney’s gaming space is small and restricted, and The Star Sydney is the large-format property most readers mean when they type the question. The licence structure around them is also sharply different: Crown Sydney has run a clean record since its 2020 opening, while The Star Sydney has spent several years under a special manager appointed by the NSW Independent Casino Commission after a money-laundering finding.

Sydney’s licensed casinos: a summary

The Star Sydney is the bigger of the two by floor area and the one most reviews lead with. It sits on Pyrmont’s waterfront, looking across to Darling Harbour, and runs two gaming floors under one roof. The complex includes 351 hotel rooms, the 2,000-seat Sydney Lyric theatre next door and a 3,000-seat Event Centre that handles concerts and conventions. It is owned by Star Entertainment Group and is the second-largest casino in Australia by gaming footprint, behind Crown Melbourne.

That scale sits inside a regulatory story that has shaped the property since 2022. The NSW Independent Casino Commission found The Star Sydney unsuitable to hold its casino licence on 13 September 2022 over conduct relating to money-laundering risks. A A$100 million fine followed in October 2022. The licence was then suspended and operations placed under a government-appointed special manager, Nicholas Weeks, with supervision expected to continue through at least September 2025. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission sued members of The Star’s former board on 10 February 2025 over failures to track the same money-laundering risks that drove the regulator’s finding.

For a visitor, what this means is straightforward: the gaming floors are open, the bars and restaurants are running, and the hotel rooms are operating. The supervisory framework is the regulator’s problem to manage, and the property itself has continued to operate through it. The reader’s working assumption — that the licence is current, that the regulator’s disciplinary process is ongoing, and that the property is being run under government oversight — is the one the public record supports.

Crown Sydney — Barangaroo, the harbour-front tower

Crown Sydney opened in December 2020 inside a 271.3-metre, 75-floor tower at Barangaroo, the tallest building in Sydney. It is principally a hotel and residential tower; the gaming floor sits among those floors, behind a membership and entry regime more restrictive than The Star’s. The building’s profile — a slender white tower curving over the harbour — has made it a visual landmark, and its dining rooms have done most of the public-facing work the property is known for.

Crown Resorts has run a different compliance record from The Star. The Victorian and Western Australian inquiries that shook Crown’s licence position in 2020-2021 closed without the kind of unsuitability finding The Star Sydney received, and Crown Sydney opened through that period with its own internal reforms already in motion. Visitors will find a smaller gaming footprint than at The Star, with the property’s appeal weighted toward hotel stays, the spa, and the harbour-view restaurants on the lower floors. For a reader whose question is purely “where do I sit at a blackjack table in Sydney”, The Star is the more accommodating answer; for a reader who wants the tower itself as part of the night, Crown Sydney is the destination.

What the law says about playing in Sydney

The Interactive Gambling Act and what it covers

The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (the IGA), tightened 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 who is physically in Australia. The offence is the provider’s, not the player’s. No state or territory issues a licence for an online casino product, and any offshore site claiming to be “licensed” is licensed somewhere else — Curaçao, Anjouan, the Isle of Man — and operates against Australian rules regardless.

What Australian-licensed operators can offer is wagering on races and sport, placed before the event, plus lotteries and keno. Sportsbet, Bet365 and Ladbrokes are the household names in that space; they are licensed in the Northern Territory for tax reasons, and the Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission oversees 52 such online bookmakers with a notably thin staffing footprint — no full-time staff, monthly meetings in Darwin. That thinness is a known feature of the regulatory architecture rather than a fresh disclosure, and a reader who wants to follow the licence chain to its root ends up at a part-time commission meeting in Darwin each month.

What the ACMA has been doing about it

The ACMA investigates, issues formal warnings, and directs Australian internet service providers to block illegal sites. As of June 2026, the authority had asked providers to block 1,751 illegal gambling and affiliate marketing websites since the first blocking request went out in November 2019. More than 230 unlicensed gambling services have left the Australian market since enforcement was strengthened in 2017 — some after formal warnings, others after their domains were blocked and they chose not to relaunch.

The most recent published blocking round, on 26 June 2026, asked providers to block 12 more sites: 7Signs, ChromaBet, Donbet, Duospin, Freshbet, Slots Gem, Jacks Club, Lucky Start, Pointsbetz, Spinrise, Vinyl Casino and Wildsino. The pattern is a rolling enforcement rather than a one-off sweep: the ACMA files a formal warning, gives the operator time to comply, and if the operator keeps the service available to Australian customers, the next step is a request to the providers to take the domain off the network. The blocking rate the public record carries is the headline statistic; the quiet exit of services that decide not to keep trying is the volume the figure does not capture.

What offshore play actually costs the Australian player

The cost is twofold, and neither side is theoretical. The financial side: H2 Gambling Capital’s 2025 report estimates Australians lose about A$3.9 billion a year to illegal gambling sites, and the share of gambling going through legal channels fell from 74% in 2021 to 64%. The protection side: an offshore site gives no Australian consumer protection, no complaints body, and no recourse if a withdrawal is refused — and the ACMA has, in several rounds, blocked sites with balances still sitting in player accounts.

A reader weighing whether to play offshore should weigh two specific consequences rather than the abstract risk. One, the balance at the moment a domain is blocked is not necessarily recoverable through any Australian channel — the operator is overseas, the regulator here has no contractual reach, and the ACMA’s blocking action is final as far as the player’s local access goes. Two, even if a balance is paid out, the transaction itself happens offshore, through payment rails the Australian rules do not cover, with no dispute path if the operator decides to withhold winnings on a bonus-abuse or KYC ground.

The rooftop bar question and the dining rooms around both venues

The rooftop-bar shelf of this search is its own short answer. Neither Sydney casino runs a true rooftop bar in the standalone sense a hotel like the ICC or the Sofitel might — what each offers is a high-floor bar or lounge inside the building, with the harbour as the backdrop, accessed through the casino’s own entry regime rather than as a separate street-level venue.

Bars and restaurants inside The Star Sydney

The Star’s gaming floors sit below a stack of dining rooms and bars that operate independently of the gaming licence. The property is known for its variety: multiple sit-down restaurants, a sports bar, and cocktail-focused lounges that take walk-ins from guests and outside visitors. The rooftop bar at The Star is effectively the top-floor cocktail lounge — indoor, climate-controlled, with views over Darling Harbour and the Anzac Bridge. Visitors who only want a drink at the bar rather than entry to the gaming floor can ask at the front desk; the policy on a stand-alone bar visit is more permissive than the gaming-floor entry rules, but identification is still required at the door.

Bars and restaurants inside Crown Sydney

Crown Sydney’s dining rooms on the lower floors have carried most of the property’s public profile since opening. The tower’s height is the draw — a 75-floor building curving over the harbour, with restaurants on the lower floors positioned to make the most of the view. The gaming floor sits among the higher floors; access is restricted to members, registered guests and walk-in visitors who meet the entry criteria, with identification and a dress standard that runs more conservative than The Star’s. The cocktail bars on the lower floors are open to diners and hotel guests without a gaming-floor entry, and the property’s position on the Barangaroo waterfront puts a short walk from a number of independent bars and restaurants in the surrounding precinct.

Where to stay when both venues are the destination

Both properties run their own hotels, which is the simplest answer for a visitor who wants to walk downstairs to the gaming floor. The Star’s 351 rooms are the larger inventory; Crown Sydney’s tower has a smaller hotel footprint and a tighter room count. For a reader who wants the casino as one of several nights rather than the whole trip, the surrounding precincts matter: Pyrmont has a tight cluster of mid-range hotels within walking distance of The Star, and Barangaroo’s own hotel offering has expanded since the tower opened. Darling Harbour’s hotel strip runs from budget through to mid-luxury, and many of those properties are within a 10-15 minute walk of The Star’s front door.

Table games, gaming machines, and the live-game floor at The Star

The Star Sydney’s gaming footprint is the largest in New South Wales by floor area and the second-largest in Australia. Two gaming floors run under one roof. The combined floor carries the table-game staples — blackjack, baccarat, roulette, craps — and a poker machine count that runs into the high hundreds. Visitors do not need to be members to walk in; identification is required at the door, and the property runs a responsible-gambling check at entry that includes asking any patron who appears affected by alcohol to leave the floor.

Blackjack, baccarat and the Asian-table tradition

The Star Sydney’s baccarat floor has been a defining feature of the property since opening. Baccarat’s grip on the Sydney market is a function of the local player base rather than the property’s choice — Sydney has a sizeable community of Asian-origin players for whom baccarat is the table-game centre of gravity, and The Star’s staffing and table count reflect that. Blackjack tables run alongside in significant numbers, with stakes that climb from the low floor up to a premium gaming room for higher-limit play. Craps tables are present but on a smaller footprint than blackjack; visitors who want a craps session should ring ahead rather than assume a table is open on the night.

Roulette and the small-stakes end of the floor

Roulette tables at The Star run both American and European wheels, with the European wheel preferred by most visitors who know the difference. The minimum-stake end of the table-game floor is the easiest to walk onto without booking; higher-stakes tables — especially the baccarat and blackjack premium rooms — generally require a booking or a host introduction. The Star’s dress standard is relaxed by Australian-casino standards, but the higher-limit rooms enforce a stricter standard than the main floor.

Gaming machines and the broader NSW machine landscape

The Star Sydney’s poker machine count is large but sits inside a much wider New South Wales machine base. In June 2023, NSW had 87,298 gaming machines outside casinos across 2,195 venues — clubs, pubs and hotels, with the bulk of the count sitting in suburban Sydney and the regions. The casino floor’s poker machines are differentiated by their own payout rates and stake structure; pub and club machines run under a state-mandated return-to-player minimum of 87.5% (set in other states at higher figures), with a maximum bet of A$5.00 outside the casino. The Star’s own machines are not subject to that A$5 cap — the maximum-bet limit applies to non-casino venues, and the casino floor carries higher stake options.

The NSW player-loss context

The wider NSW context is the figure worth keeping in mind while looking at a casino floor. In FY22-23, NSW recorded A$8.18 billion in annual player losses from poker machines outside casinos, equivalent to A$986 per capita. The casino floors carry their own loss number, but the bulk of NSW gambling losses flow through the pub and club machines rather than the casino. A reader who is curious about the casino’s share of NSW gambling harm will find the casino sitting on top of a much larger machine base that does not require a venue visit at all.

Responsible gambling at the casino and across the wagering market

Entry requirements and the 18-year age rule

The minimum age to enter a casino in New South Wales is 18, the same minimum that applies to wagering and to licensed venue entry more broadly. Identification is checked at the door — passport, driver’s licence or the NSW digital ID — and the entry check is the gate the casino runs on every patron, including those who only want the bar. Visitors who are refused entry on the age check are not a marginal category; the property enforces it as a licensing condition, and a refusal on the night is unappealable at the door.

BetStop and what it covers

BetStop — the National Self-Exclusion Register, live since August 2023 — binds Australian-licensed online and phone wagering services to a player’s self-exclusion request. A person who registers with BetStop is blocked from opening new accounts with any Australian-licensed wagering provider, and existing accounts are closed. What BetStop does not cover is offshore wagering or casino services. An offshore casino is not connected to the register, and a player who excludes themselves from Australian wagering can still reach an offshore casino that the ACMA has yet to block. The register is a real protection within the Australian-licensed market, and a partial protection outside it.

Support services and the gambling helpline

The National Gambling Helpline — 1800 858 858 — is free, runs 24/7, and offers chat through Gambling Help Online. The helpline is staffed by counsellors who can talk through the financial side, the family side, and the practical steps a caller can take in their own situation, including how to register with BetStop if the caller is in the licensed market. The service is the one Australian-licensed channel that is genuinely reachable no matter where in the country the caller sits; the offshore site’s own responsible-gambling tools are a different conversation, with no Australian complaint path if the tool fails to do what the player asked.

The credit card and crypto ban for licensed wagering

Since 11 June 2024, credit cards, credit-related products and digital currency have been banned as payment for licensed online wagering. The penalties for an operator that accepts them are up to A$247,500. The legal deposit routes for licensed wagering are debit card, bank transfer, PayID, Osko and BPAY. The practical signal of this rule for a reader: an Australian-licensed wagering site never asks for a credit card or a crypto deposit. A site that does — and most offshore casinos do — is operating outside the Australian rules, with the consumer-protection consequences that flow from that.

The Crown Resorts record and what the Sydney property is built on

Crown Sydney’s clean licence record since its 2020 opening sits against a different Crown Resorts history in Melbourne and Perth. The 2020-2021 inquiries into Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth found unsuitability concerns around anti-money-laundering and responsible-gambling controls; Crown responded with senior leadership changes, an internal restructure, and a series of compliance investments that have run through the period since. Crown Sydney opened inside that restructuring rather than after it had finished, and the property’s compliance posture is a function of the changes Crown was already making at the parent level.

For the visitor the consequence is structural: Crown Sydney’s gaming floor is smaller and more restricted than The Star’s, the membership regime is tighter, and the dining rooms have carried most of the public profile. The reader who chooses Crown Sydney over The Star is choosing a property that has not been through an unsuitability finding, a fine, a licence suspension and a special manager — that distinction matters for some readers and not for others, and is one of the genuine choices the Sydney market presents.

What Brisbane and Adelaide’s casino record tells a Sydney reader

Sydney’s casino market sits inside an Australian one where the other major capitals have their own distinct stories. Adelaide Casino, now known commercially as SkyCity Adelaide, sits in the heritage-listed Adelaide railway station building on North Terrace, runs 90 gaming tables and 950 gaming machines, and is the sole licensed casino in South Australia under the Casino Act 1997. South Australia had 11,672 gaming machines outside Adelaide Casino across 471 venues in September 2023, and Adelaide Casino’s table-game monopoly in the state was extended to 30 June 2035 under a licence formalised on 11 October 2013. South Australian gaming-machine losses outside Adelaide Casino totalled about A$0.92 billion in 2022-23, equivalent to about A$497 per adult.

Brisbane’s casino market has moved in the opposite direction. Treasury Casino, operated by Star Entertainment Group, closed on 25 August 2024 to make way for the new Star casino at Queen’s Wharf — a A$3.6 billion precinct developed jointly by Star Entertainment Group and Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, with the main casino floor and premium gaming rooms opening first from 29 August 2024. Treasury Casino had run for 29 years out of Brisbane’s historic Treasury Building, with a three-level gaming emporium of 80 gaming tables and over 1,300 gaming machines, plus a hotel, six restaurants, five bars and a nightclub. Queensland had 21,122 gaming machines operating across 351 venues in October 2023. The Star Brisbane opening was itself shadowed by the Queensland Government’s late-2022 finding that Star Entertainment was unsuitable to hold its Queensland casino licences, after an independent review by former Court of Appeal judge Robert Gotterson found the operator had misled regulators and failed its anti-money-laundering duties; Star was fined A$100 million on 9 December 2022, with a 90-day suspension of the Treasury Brisbane and Star Gold Coast licences deferred to 1 December 2023 to allow remediation.

The Sydney reader does not visit Brisbane or Adelaide casinos as a rule, but the comparison carries information about the company that runs The Star Sydney. The same parent company, Star Entertainment Group, ran both Treasury Brisbane and The Star Sydney through these events. The two properties have different regulators — the NSW Independent Casino Commission on one side, the Queensland Government on the other — but the underlying finding has the same shape. A reader who wants the cleanest licence story in the Sydney market has only one option to pick from: Crown Sydney.

The offshore brands Australians see in marketing — and what the ACMA has done about each

The next section lays out eleven offshore brands that Australians see advertised during local sport, in podcast reads, and on social. None is licensed in Australia. Each has been the subject of an ACMA formal warning for offering prohibited services to people in Australia, with the operator name and the warning date drawn from the ACMA’s own publication. Where research surfaced a separate mention in the press or in a regulator’s listings, that is noted; where the public record carries nothing beyond the warning itself, the entry is left blank rather than padded.

The table reads as one warning after another rather than as a choice. The point of carrying it is to give a reader who has been advertised to a sense of what the regulator has actually done about the brand they keep seeing. Every row has an operator name, a date, and a statutory basis — the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 — that is the same across the eleven rows. Where a row carries an earlier warning, the brand has been on the ACMA’s radar longer than the most recent date suggests; where a row carries only the most recent warning, the brand has come into the regulator’s view within the past two years.

RocketPlay — Pulsup Ltd, March 2026; Dama N.V., May 2022

The March 2026 warning to Pulsup Ltd over RocketPlay is the most recent ACMA action on this brand. The earlier 2022 warning was issued to Dama N.V., the operator behind a number of brands the ACMA has acted against over the years. The two addresses do not necessarily mean two operators running the same site; they mean the ACMA has found the brand’s offering addressed to Australians under two different ownership names over the four-year window. A reader who saw the brand before 2022 and again after 2026 was being offered the same prohibited service under a different corporate wrapper.

The practical signal for an Australian is that this site is on the ACMA’s list twice and has not changed the underlying product. The brand’s Australian-facing marketing has not, on the public record, dropped off; the warnings are the regulator’s response, and they did not produce a withdrawal from the Australian market on their own.

Level Up Casino — Dama N.V., May 2022

The May 2022 ACMA warning to Dama N.V. covered six casino brands in a single formal action: Bambet, Dazard, Level Up, Rocketplay, Wild Tornado and Cobra Casinos. Level Up was one of the six. The 2022 batch is the largest single set of warnings the ACMA has issued to Dama N.V., and it is the reason subsequent Dama N.V. brands (Woo Casino in 2025, Spirit Casino in 2025) appear separately in the ACMA’s register. Dama N.V. is the operator most consistently named in the ACMA’s published warnings, and its brands are the most visible in Australian-facing affiliate marketing.

A reader who sees Level Up in marketing is being offered a service the ACMA warned Dama N.V. about in May 2022. The brand has continued to advertise to Australians since; the warning has not, on its own, ended the Australian-facing offering.

Woo Casino — Dama N.V., March 2025

Woo Casino is the second Dama N.V. brand to be warned after the 2022 batch. The March 2025 formal warning was issued after Woo Casino continued to advertise and accept Australian customers. The shift from the 2022 batch to Woo Casino’s separate warning in 2025 is the pattern the regulator runs: a warning batch to a parent operator, then individual warnings to any of the parent’s brands that keep operating against the same rule.

Spirit Casino — Dama N.V., May 2025

Spirit Casino follows the same shape as Woo Casino — a separate Dama N.V. brand warned in 2025 after the original 2022 batch. The May 2025 date places it after the Woo Casino warning and as part of the regulator’s rolling response to Dama N.V.’s continuing Australian-facing operations.

National Casino — Consolutetish S.R.L., July 2025

National Casino was warned alongside Bizzo Casino in the same July 2025 batch from Consolutetish S.R.L. The brand has appeared in Australian-facing marketing through podcast reads, programmatic display and social, and the July 2025 warning is the regulator’s response to that. A reader who saw National Casino advertised after July 2025 was being offered a service the ACMA had warned the operator about two months earlier.

Bizzo Casino — Consolutetish S.R.L., July 2025; TechSolutions, 2022

Bizzo Casino has the longest ACMA history in this list. The 2022 formal warning was issued to TechSolutions (CY) Group Limited and TechSolutions Group N.V., the corporate names the brand was operating under in 2022. The July 2025 warning went to Consolutetish S.R.L., the new operator. The brand has carried on through two operator changes and two formal warnings without, on the public record, ending its Australian-facing offering.

Ignition Casino — Bamboo Media, July 2025

The July 2025 warning to Bamboo Media over Ignition Casino is one of the regulator’s most recent actions. Ignition has been a long-running brand in the Australian-facing affiliate space; the warning marks the first ACMA formal action on this specific corporate address.

Instant Casino — EOD Code SRL, February 2025

Instant Casino’s February 2025 warning was the ACMA’s first formal action on this brand. EOD Code SRL is the operator name the ACMA published with the warning.

Jackbit — Ryker B.V., April 2026

The April 2026 ACMA warning covered both Jackbit and CasinOK under the same operator. Ryker B.V. is the corporate name the ACMA published with the warning.

Casino Intense — Sterplay Holding Ltd, April 2025

The April 2025 warning to Sterplay Holding Ltd over Casino Intense followed the regulator’s pattern of formal warnings to brand operators carrying on Australian-facing service after earlier enforcement rounds. Casino Intense has appeared in Australian-facing marketing through the same channels as the rest of this list.

Sky Crown — Hollycorn N.V. (Sky Crown and Blue Leo)

The ACMA’s formal warning to Hollycorn N.V. over Sky Crown and Blue Leo was issued under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 with the operator named as Hollycorn N.V. across both brands. Sky Crown is the more visible of the two in Australian-facing affiliate marketing.

Reading the table

Three patterns sit across the eleven rows. First, the ACMA names an operator, not a brand, and the same operator often appears across multiple brand warnings — Dama N.V. carries four of the rows in this table, with Consolutetish S.R.L. carrying two and others carrying one each. Second, the warning dates are spread across 2022, 2025 and 2026, with no row from 2023 or 2024 — the regulator’s enforcement cadence has accelerated, not slowed, across the past two years. Third, where the public record carries only the ACMA’s own publication, the entry is left empty rather than padded with an affiliate description; an offshore casino’s bonus terms, game library and payment methods are not facts the ACMA’s register carries, and any such figure carried forward would come from the marketing pages the regulator has been telling Australians to ignore.

What the blocking rate actually shows

The blocking-rate calculation the public record supports is straightforward to write but is more useful as a band than as a single figure. The ACMA’s first blocking request went out in November 2019. As of the June 2026 publication, 1,751 illegal gambling and affiliate marketing websites had been blocked across the intervening years. That works out to roughly 1,751 sites over approximately 79 months, or around 22 blocked sites per month across the period as a whole.

The condition that turns that into a band rather than a number is the cadence the regulator has actually run. The early years after the 2017 amendments carried fewer blocking requests as the regulator built the legal and procedural framework; the past two years have carried more, with several rounds per year. The 22-per-month average sits between a slow-build opening and a steady-state present, and the right reading is that the ACMA’s recent monthly pace has run higher than that average. A reader who wants the recent figure rather than the historical one should treat the 22-per-month figure as a floor — the present cadence is faster, and the public record’s most recent single round added 12 domains in one publication date.

The other half of the blocking-rate picture is the operator-exit number. More than 230 unlicensed gambling services have left the Australian market since 2017. That figure does not come out of the blocking-rate calculation — it is a separate count the ACMA publishes alongside — but it carries the same shape. Some operators withdraw after a warning rather than waiting for the blocking request; others continue to advertise and end up in the next blocking round. The 230 figure is the volume of the first category, and the 1,751 figure is the volume of the second.

What a Sydney visitor can actually do this year

A reader who has reached this point in the page is likely working from one of two questions. The first is where to go physically, and the answer is The Star Sydney or Crown Sydney depending on what the night is meant to include. The second is whether to play online instead, and the answer is that no Australian jurisdiction licenses online casino games, that the ACMA has been blocking offshore sites at a steady cadence, and that any offshore brand offering to take a deposit from an Australian is operating against Australian rules regardless of the licence it displays elsewhere.

The two answers sit on top of each other rather than as alternatives. A reader who wants to play in Sydney goes to one of the two licensed venues. A reader who wants to play online goes to a site the ACMA has been telling Australians to avoid, and pays for the privilege in the form of an unprotected balance and a transaction that has no Australian dispute path if it goes wrong. Both answers are true at once, and the rest of the page is the evidence behind them.

Tax, winnings, and the ATO position

A recreational player’s gambling winnings are not assessable income in Australia — section 6-5 of the ITAA 1997 is the basis for that position, and the ATO’s own guidance carries it. Losses are not deductible, except where the person carries on a business of gambling; the ATO’s framing of that exception is narrow, and a player who is reading this page is well outside it.

The practical consequence for a reader who plays at The Star or Crown Sydney is that a session’s winnings do not need to be declared, and a session’s losses cannot be claimed against other income. That is the same position the ATO has held for years, and the offshore site’s winnings or losses do not change it — the offshore side does not put a player into a different tax position. The wider gambling-reform bill that passed Parliament on 19 August 2026 carries advertising and inducement measures that commence on 1 January 2027, with a year between passage and effect; the rule is law with a start date, not yet in force on a 2026 page.

Frequently asked questions

What is the main casino in Sydney?

Sydney’s main casino by gaming-floor size is The Star Sydney, at Pyrmont overlooking Darling Harbour. It is Australia’s second-largest casino after Crown Melbourne, with two gaming floors, 351 hotel rooms, the 2,000-seat Sydney Lyric theatre and a 3,000-seat Event Centre on the same complex. Crown Sydney at Barangaroo opened in December 2020 with a smaller, restricted gaming floor inside a 75-floor tower, and is the second licensed casino in the city.

Where is the casino in Sydney located?

The Star Sydney sits in Pyrmont on the waterfront overlooking Darling Harbour, on the western edge of Sydney’s central business district. Crown Sydney sits in Barangaroo, on the harbour-front precinct to the north-west of the CBD, inside the 75-floor tower that is currently Sydney’s tallest building. Both are within roughly 10-15 minutes of the city’s hotel and dining strips by foot or by short cab.

What is the minimum age to enter a casino in Sydney?

The minimum age is 18. Identification is checked at the door — passport, driver’s licence or the NSW digital ID — and the entry check is a licensing condition the casino enforces on every patron, including visitors who only want the bar rather than the gaming floor. There is no exception to the age rule for any part of the casino property.

Does the casino in Sydney offer table games like blackjack and baccarat?

Yes. The Star Sydney runs the full table-game range on its main gaming floor: blackjack, baccarat, roulette and craps, with both American and European roulette wheels. Baccarat carries the largest table count, reflecting the local player base’s preference; craps runs a smaller footprint, and visitors who want a craps session should ring ahead. Crown Sydney’s gaming floor is more restricted and carries fewer tables than The Star’s.

Are there hotels within walking distance of the casino in Sydney?

Yes, and both venues run their own hotels on-site. The Star’s 351 rooms are the larger inventory, with Pyrmont’s surrounding hotel strip adding mid-range options within a 10-15 minute walk. Crown Sydney’s hotel is inside the tower itself, and Barangaroo’s wider hotel offering has expanded since the tower opened in 2020. Darling Harbour’s hotel strip runs from budget through to mid-luxury and sits within easy walking distance of The Star’s front door.

Can Australians play at an online casino instead?

No. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001, as tightened by the 2017 amendments, makes it an offence for an offshore operator to provide online casino games or online pokies to a person in Australia. No state or territory licenses an online casino product. The ACMA has been blocking offshore sites since November 2019, with 1,751 sites blocked as of June 2026 and a steady cadence of formal warnings against the operators behind them. An Australian who plays at an offshore casino has no Australian consumer protection and no dispute path if a withdrawal is refused.