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Local Impact Assessment (LIA)

The Local Impact Assessment (LIA) process has been established to assess the impact of additional gaming machines in a local government area.

Each local government area is classified into Bands 1, 2, or 3 based on its gaming machine density, gaming machine expenditure and Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) disadvantage score.

Local government areas are also referred to as LGAs. Classifications for all areas are listed below.

Depending on the classification of the local government area where the venue is located, the venue may or may not be required to complete a LIA when applying for an increase in the number of gaming machines it can have.

What you need to demonstrate

If a Class 1 LIA is required, the applicant venue will need to demonstrate that the additional gaming machines will provide a positive contribution towards the local community.

If the application is for a Class 2 LIA, the venue will need to demonstrate that the additional gaming machines will result in an overall positive impact on the local community.

A fact sheet about the LIA process, as well as Class 1 LIA and Class 2 LIA guidelines, is available.

Classification of local government areas

The following classifications for local government areas were approved by the Casino, Liquor and Gaming Control Authority on 29 January 2009. These classifications will be reviewed and updated in accordance with changes in gaming machine expenditure and density from time to time.

Please note - The Authority will assess and determine a LIA based on the classification of the applicant venue’s local government areas as at its lodgement date.

PDF Local government areas - all bands (268kb)

PDF Band 1 local government areas (190kb)

PDF Band 2 local government areas (194kb)

PDF Band 3 local government areas (194kb)

Methodology used for determining classifications

In determining the classifications, the Authority considered each LGA as being situated in either the greater Sydney metropolitan region or country region of NSW. A ranking system was then established and applied to each region based each LGA’s:

density of poker machine entitlements (including hotel Liquor Act poker machine permits) as at 19 January 2009
total gaming machine expenditure per capita (Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated populations for 2007) as at the quarters ending August 2008 for clubs and September 2008 for hotels and
2006 index of relative socio-economic disadvantage score (Australian Bureau of Statistics).

The Authority then used a simple method of classifying the top 25 percent of LGAs in each region in Band 3. These LGAs were generally characterised as having high numbers of gaming machines, high gaming machine expenditure or a low index of relative socio-economic disadvantage.

The following 25 percent of LGAs in each region were then classified in Band 2. The remaining LGAs were classified in Band 1 as they typically had low numbers of gaming machines, low gaming machine expenditure or a high index of relative socio-economic disadvantage.

View LIA application reports

Please note - The Authority has determined that it will review this method in 2010 and request submissions from stakeholders to express their views about the validity of this process.