Adelaide hotel fined after letting patrons withdraw too much cash

A landmark ruling in South Australia has seen a hotel and its owners fined more than $27,000 for letting patrons withdraw too much cash.

Mansfield Park Hotel was found guilty on eight counts of allowing a person to withdraw more than $200 from an EFTPOS facility and ordered a fine of $21,000 after an early guilty plea.

Operations manager Shaun Seymour Matthews was ordered to pay $10,400 but a conviction was not recorded.

Hotel patrons were able to withdraw more than $200 from EFTPOS facilities on 40 occasions between February 2015 and November 2016, according to court documents.

Under state law, the maximum withdrawal from an EFTPOS machine per day and per card is $200.

“The limits on EFTPOS withdrawals are an important measure in the fight against problem gambling,” The Commissioner for Liquor and Gambling, Dini Soulio, told The Advertiser.

The hotel is one of 12 venues operated by Matthews Hospitality, which has licences to run 243 gaming machines across seven of those locations.

Sheridan Randall, 4^th December 2019