Responsible Service of Gambling: Current Availability and Victorian Requirements

We do not currently offer Responsible Service of Gambling training. Our official course page confirms this availability status. The information below explains Victorian requirements and the distinction between those requirements and nationally recognised gambling units.

View our official course details and booking information. Course details checked 2 October 2026.

Course background and related accredited requirements

If you need Victorian RSG for work in a gaming venue, you must complete the free government training at rsgonline.vic.gov.au. No registered training organisation can provide it, including this one.

That is an unusual thing for a training provider's page to say, so this page explains exactly why, who the requirement actually binds, and what the nationally recognised gambling unit is for.

Victorian RSG is government-delivered

Australia has three different systems that all get called "training", and gambling is the area where confusing them costs the most.

Victorian RSG is System C. The Department of Justice and Community Safety delivers it directly and free of charge through rsgonline.vic.gov.au, with the face-to-face modules run by Venue Support Workers.

There is no approved-provider register for Victorian RSG because there is nothing for a provider to be approved for. A private provider claiming to be an "approved Victorian RSG provider" is describing a scheme that does not exist.

The department's own position

DJCS states the point directly:

"The approved RSG training in Victoria is different to training provided in other states. For this reason, you must complete the approved Victorian RSG training even if [you have completed] SITHGAM compliant training provided by some Registered Training Organisations."

So completing SITHGAM022 with an RTO does not discharge the Victorian requirement. A Victorian gaming venue worker who has done the national unit still has to complete the DJCS training. There is no bridging course, no recognition pathway and no exemption.

Who the requirement actually binds

This is the question the page should answer before anything else, because the test is narrower than "works at a venue with pokies".

You must complete Victorian RSG training if you are employed in a Victorian gaming venue and both of the following are true:

• you work in the gaming machine area (GMA) of the venue, and
• you have more than incidental contact or interaction with players of gaming machines in the GMA

You must also complete it, regardless of the test above, if you are:

• a venue operator
• the nominee of a venue operator
• the holder of a gaming industry employee licence

A Responsible Gambling Officer (RGO), nominated by the venue operator under the Ministerial Direction, must have completed at least Module 1 and be deemed by the venue operator able to meet the requirements of the role.

The "more than incidental contact" limb is where judgement sits. A bar attendant who crosses the gaming room collecting glasses is in a different position from one who serves drinks to players at the machines. The obligation to ensure staff are trained rests on the venue operator, so that is who to ask rather than guessing.

The gaming industry employee licence is a separate thing again

Worth separating because the words look similar. RSG is training. The gaming industry employee licence is a licence, issued by the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC) to a person on the basis of their duties. It is required only where the work involves:

• any task requiring access to the logic area of a gaming machine
• possessing or issuing logic-area keys
• accessing a prescribed restricted monitoring component — a Jackpot Interface Board or a Slot Machine Interface Board
• supervising any person doing the above

And the carve-out that decides most cases: opening a gaming machine without accessing the logic area does not require the licence. Emptying the cash hopper is the example given. So most gaming attendants do not need it — and if you do hold it, that puts you in the group who must complete RSG training as well. The licence triggers the training; it does not replace it.

What the Victorian requirement actually is

| | | | --- | --- | | Where | rsgonline.vic.gov.au | | Cost | Free | | Delivered by | Department of Justice and Community Safety | | Face-to-face modules | Run by Venue Support Workers, in venue or by video-conference |

After the first refresher cycle, Modules 3 and 4 repeat every three years, measured from the date you last completed Module 4.

Three rules that catch people out:

• Training is not a condition of being hired or of starting work. Module 1 is simply due within a month.
• Attempt Module 4 outside the three-month window after Module 3 and you have to redo Module 3. That is why the online module is best completed shortly before the paired face-to-face session.
• If more than three years have passed since Module 2 or Module 4, that is an "expired RSG certificate", and both Module 3 and Module 4 must be completed before working in the gaming area again.

There is no physical card. Certificates are generated and re-downloaded from your own account at rsgonline.vic.gov.au, and after a face-to-face module you must log in to generate that module's certificate. Name changes are handled by updating your profile and regenerating.

If that is your requirement, go there. You do not need to pay anyone.

What the venue has to do

The venue operator must ensure any employee who needs RSG training completes Module 1 within one month and Module 2 within six months of starting employment. The operator must also keep a record of completion, and the VGCCC may inspect it during a compliance inspection. Per the VGCCC: "Failure to provide this information on request may result in us taking disciplinary action against you."

Operators can check staff certificate status at rsgonline.vic.gov.au/local/rsg/report_cert_check.php, and should review Module 2 and Module 4 dates to identify who is due for a refresher.

Useful contacts: VGCCC on 1300 599 759 or contact@vgccc.vic.gov.au; RSG training help at rsgonlinehelp@justice.vic.gov.au; student sign-up at rsgonline.vic.gov.au.

What SITHGAM022 is for

None of this makes the national unit worthless. SITHGAM022 Provide responsible gambling services is a genuine nationally recognised unit in the SIT Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Training Package, developed by Service and Creative Skills Australia, and we hold it on scope as deliver and assess. It appears as an elective in several of our qualifications, including SIT20322, SIT30622, SIT30722, SIT40422 and SIT50422.

One correction worth making here, because this page previously got it wrong: the SITSS00070 Hospitality Compliance Skill Set does not contain SITHGAM022. That skill set packages the liquor and food safety units — SITHFAB021, SITXFSA005 and SITXFSA006. If you want the gambling unit, take it as a qualification elective or as a standalone unit, and confirm the current skill-set composition on training.gov.au rather than relying on a provider's description.

Completing SITHGAM022 produces a nationally recognised Statement of Attainment, which is useful for:

• Counting toward a qualification — it is an elective in several of our qualifications and credit-transfers on enrolment under Standard 1.7
• Portability — it appears on your national training transcript against your Unique Student Identifier, permanently
• Interstate contexts where a national unit is recognised, subject to that state's own rules
• Demonstrating competency to an employer outside the Victorian statutory pathway

What it does not do is satisfy the Victorian RSG requirement. Those are separate questions and the unit is honest about being the first, not the second.

What the unit actually covers

This is the most useful part of the page for anyone working a gaming floor, whichever pathway got them there, because it is the clearest published account of what competent conduct looks like.

The harm-minimisation strategies it names

These are physical and specific rather than attitudinal:

• containing gambling-related signage to inside the venue
• positioning clocks showing the correct time so they are visible in gaming machine areas
• not publishing gaming machine advertising
• not locating automatic teller machines in gaming areas
• ensuring ATM facilities do not allow cash withdrawals from credit accounts

The clock is the one people find surprising, and it is the point of the whole design. A gaming machine area is built so that time stops being noticeable, so the countermeasure written into the unit is a visible clock showing the correct time.

Alongside those, the unit requires you to implement responsible gambling practices on at least one occasion, including the provision and appropriate placement of signage, advertising and promotional materials, strategies to indicate the passage of time, and strategies that encourage breaks in play.

The signs of gambling harm it requires you to recognise

• bills that cannot be paid because of excessive gambling
• borrowing money to gamble
• changes in sleeping or eating habits
• committing illegal acts to finance gambling
• considering self-harm as a result of gambling
• feelings of remorse after gambling
• gambling more than the person can afford
• home life becoming unhappy because of gambling
• gambling to escape worry or personal problems
• attempting to win back gambling losses

The six situations you must have a process for

The unit requires you to identify the appropriate organisational process in response to each of:

1. a customer requesting self-exclusion or assistance
2. a customer requesting counselling services
3. venue exclusion of a self-identified problem gambler
4. disputes or complaints
5. refusal of credit
6. under-age gambling

The procedures it expects the venue to have

Displaying gambling-related signage — counselling services, self-exclusion programs, gambling warnings, house policy and the venue code of conduct; maintaining confidentiality and privacy; keeping records of gambling-related incidents; self-exclusion, third-party exclusion and venue exclusion processes and the response to a breach of an exclusion; and referral to counsellors and support services. The unit also requires knowledge of the distinct roles of staff members, supervisors and managers, and of the ramifications of non-compliance for both the organisation and the individual.

How it is assessed

Skills must be demonstrated in an operational gaming environment — an industry workplace or a simulated environment set up for assessment. Assessment must ensure access to a facility where industry-realistic gambling activities occur, current regulatory documents, legislative publications and codes of conduct from state and territory gambling licensing agencies, industry and organisational codes of conduct, policies, procedures, signage and brochures, and an industry-realistic range of customers, whether real or through role plays.

Assessors must satisfy the Standards for RTOs requirements for assessors and have worked in industry for at least three years applying the skills and knowledge of this unit. That is a fair question to ask any provider before enrolling.

The wider gaming unit set

The SIT package carries more than one gaming unit, and the others are ordinary electives without a parallel statutory scheme attached:

Most of the gaming units beyond responsible gambling services carry prerequisites and must be sequenced. Check individual unit requirements before planning an elective set.

How other states differ

New South Wales runs the opposite model to Victoria: a private provider can be approved there, and must be, and the training carries a competency card and its own renewal rules. So "I did my gambling training in Sydney" and "I did my gambling training in Melbourne" describe entirely different processes.

An RSA Statement of Attainment is a national training record, but permission to serve alcohol depends on the destination’s rules. NSW permits eligible temporary interstate workers; permanent movers and security or RSA marshal roles must meet NSW training and competency-card requirements, using bridging where eligible. Victoria offers bridging to eligible interstate holders. SA applies approved-provider rules to training from 1 November 2020, with earlier training not required to be repeated solely for that change. QLD and WA require suitable national RSA evidence. Tasmania distinguishes staff from licence holders; the ACT and NT have local currency and refresher requirements. Check the regulator before your first shift. See RSA recognition by jurisdiction, NSW’s rules and SA’s rules.

So a Victorian gaming-venue worker faces two separate multi-stage state processes on top of any national units: the DJCS RSG modules, and the LCV RSA sequence. Neither is discharged by an RTO course alone, and the two refresher cycles do not align.

The distinction worth carrying away

Accredited and approved are different words that mean different things.

• Accredited means the training delivers a unit of competency listed on training.gov.au, through an RTO. That is what SITHGAM022 is.
• Approved means a regulator has authorised a specific provider to deliver a specific course the regulator owns. That is what NSW RCG providers hold, and what nobody holds for Victorian RSG.

Check that the training matches the intended regulatory outcome. Nationally accredited SITHGAM training is separate from Victoria’s approved RSG modules and does not replace them. Victorian RSG is free approved training: online modules through RSG Online and venue-arranged sessions with venue support workers. National SITHGAM training does not replace it. See the official training requirements and our RSG guide.

The general rule: an RTO's scope on training.gov.au tells you what it may train and assess. It tells you nothing about a liquor, gaming or food regulator's approval, because those are separate registers held by separate bodies. Check the register that governs the thing you actually need.

Where gaming work sits for pay

Worth knowing, because gaming is one of the few roles where the award answer is genuinely counter-intuitive.

Which modern award covers you is decided by the premises, not the job title, and gaming work splits two ways:

Same machines, same SITHGAM022 unit, different instrument and different pay table. MA000009 clause 4.4(d)(i) expressly excludes "clubs registered or recognised under State or Territory legislation", and clause 4.3 of MA000058 requires the club to be registered under a liquor, gaming, associations incorporation or corporations statute and to operate not-for-profit for its members and the community.

The good news for a gaming attendant: both awards carry the classification floor. A relevant AQF Certificate III or higher, used at work, sets a minimum classification of Level 4 under MA000009 (cl 18.1) and MA000058 (cl 18.3) — and also under MA000119 (cl 18.1) for restaurant premises. Only the fast food award, MA000003, has no equivalent provision.

So the qualification argument works the same in the pub and in the RSL, even though the pay tables differ. SITHGAM022 alone will not do it — a single unit does not move your classification. A completed Certificate III does, which is the practical reason to take the gaming unit as an elective inside SIT30622 rather than as a standalone purchase.

That said, the award's definition of an appropriate level of training is wider than a full qualification. It covers a training program meeting the training and assessment requirements of a qualification or one or more appropriate units of competency from a training package; or assessment by a qualified skills assessor as having at least equivalent skills; or, as at a specified date, having been doing the work of that classification for at least three months. Long-serving gaming staff should read that third limb.

Two caveats: under MA000009 and MA000119 the qualification must be relevant to your classification and you must make use of the skills, so it is not automatic on completion; and MA000058 lets the Fair Work Commission require the employee to demonstrate they utilise the relevant skills. Dispute routes also differ — MA000009 clause 40, MA000119 clause 34, and for MA000058 referral to the Fair Work Commission. No pay rates, loadings or roster notice periods are published here: rates re-set every 1 July and those provisions differ between the awards, so use the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool with your award code and read your award's own clauses.

Practical notes

• The Victorian RSG training is free. If anyone quotes you a fee for it, that is the signal to stop.
• SITHGAM022 has no prerequisite qualification, though several other gaming units do.
• USI arrangements. For nationally recognised training, a Unique Student Identifier (USI) is generally required before a qualification or Statement of Attainment can be issued, unless an applicable exemption applies. See the official USI exemption guidance. A USI is free at usi.gov.au. If you already have one, recover it rather than creating another. Your USI must not be printed on your qualification or Statement of Attainment. We verify that it belongs to you before using it.
• Certification has a deadline. Where you have been assessed as competent, an RTO must issue the certification within 30 calendar days from the completion of the assessment, provided you completed the training product and paid all agreed fees.
• Your Statement of Attainment never expires. Where a state credential carries a renewal period, that period belongs to the state document, not to your national record. An RTO must retain records of the certification documentation it has issued for 30 years, so a lost document is a records request rather than a re-enrolment.
• Gaming venues usually also mean food and alcohol. If you handle ice, cut fruit or unpackaged garnishes you are a food handler under Standard 3.2.2A, and if you serve alcohol you need RSA. Neither is covered by a gambling unit. See food handling and RSA.

About us

We are Complete Hospitality Training, RTO 3722, CRICOS provider code 04242E, Level 3, 28 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, and 410 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010. Contact melbourne@cht.edu.au or +61 3 9654 1554. See about us and all courses.

Our scope for SITHGAM022 is separate from Victoria’s RSG requirements. We direct learners to the Victorian approved scheme for that requirement. Victorian RSG is free approved training: online modules through RSG Online and venue-arranged sessions with venue support workers. National SITHGAM training does not replace it. See the official training requirements and our RSG guide.

We link to the relevant course and regulatory sources in this guide. Check those sources for current requirements, and confirm course availability, delivery, fees and entry requirements with us before enrolling.