Pokies in Adelaide: 12 gaming rooms and the rules they run under

Adelaide gaming rooms, from their own pages

Each venue below says on its own website that it runs a gaming room. Machine counts and hours are copied as the venue publishes them; where a venue gives only its trading hours, the cell says so.

Links to every venue page are under Sources. Hours change with the seasons and with licence conditions, so check the venue’s own page before you go.

Why every room tops out at 40

The Gaming Machines Act 1992 says the Commissioner cannot approve more than 40 gaming machines for one hotel or club licence. That’s why the list reads 32, 33, 38, 39 and a run of 40s. The casino is the exception, with its own entitlement under the Act.

The South Australian rules

• Minimum return: 87.5% for hotels, clubs and the casino. SkyCity prints it on its own page: “Minimum legislated return to player on gaming machines is 87.5%.”
• Maximum bet: $5 a spin. At the casino, premium gaming areas are excepted.
• Daily break: at least 6 hours in every 24 with no gaming — one 6-hour block, two of 3 hours or three of 2 hours.
• Closed days: no gaming on Christmas Day or Good Friday.

South Australia’s 87.5% is the highest floor for pubs and clubs in the country. Next to Queensland’s and NSW’s 85%, it’s $2.50 more back on every $100 staked over the long run. The RTP by state page compares all eight.

Finding a venue near you

Consumer and Business Services keeps a public register of gaming machine entitlements, listing every entitlement held in SA and the venue that holds it. It’s the fullest list of where machines are; venue pages tell you the hours.

SkyCity Adelaide

The casino on North Terrace spreads its machines over two floors and describes them as “the newest and most exclusive gaming machines in South Australia”. It also says its jackpots and bet limits are higher than anywhere else in the state, which fits the premium-area exception to the $5 limit.

Ainsley Duff

Editor, Payback Notes · Published 29 September 2026 · Checked 29 September 2026

Ainsley Duff writes Payback Notes from Adelaide. She reads RTP where it is actually published — state technical standards, provider game sheets and help files, venue pages — and puts a date and a link beside every figure.

What I checked for this page (29 September 2026): read the gaming page of each venue listed and saved a copy, took the SA rules from the Gaming Machines Act 1992 (version of 9 December 2021) and the national standard, and read SkyCity Adelaide’s page through an archive copy because the live site blocked our checks. Not done yet: SkyCity’s gaming hours, and a count of Adelaide venues from the CBS register, which didn’t load from outside Australia.

How figures get in: how we verify RTP · sources for this page · how we earn. A commission never changes the RTP figures we publish or the order they appear in.