Two compliance platforms for Australian gaming venues. Different architectural approaches, different positioning, different strengths. This page is an architectural read — we don't pretend CherryHub is bad (it isn't) and we don't pretend Venue Axis fits every venue (it doesn't). The decision should turn on operational fit, not feature lists.
Disclosure
We're Venue Axis. This page is written by us. We've tried to keep the comparison architectural and honest, including where CherryHub leads. If you spot something that mischaracterises CherryCheck or the broader CherryHub ecosystem, email hello@venueaxis.com.au and we'll review and correct.
CherryHub is the parent ecosystem brand. Within it sit three distinct tiers a club can engage with separately or together. This page references each by its specific name where the comparison turns on tier-specific behaviour.
Free incident-register tier delivered via ClubsNSW's ClubLIFE portal. Covers basic gambling-incident-register digitisation. Suits very small clubs whose compliance burden is essentially “don't lose the paperwork.” No SMR process, no CDD, no FRT, no AML — incident capture only.
Three purchasable compliance modules: RCG/RSG, AML/CTF, and RSA. Real-time incident logging, escalation workflows, talk-to-text capture, image attachment. The AML/CTF module is staff-observation-driven— no server-side anomaly detection, no four-stage SMR process with documented alert rationale. For enterprise-grade AML (AUSTRAC review-ready depth), the standard CherryHub upgrade path is to add BNDRY on top of CherryCheck PRO. Combined stack pricing is not publicly disclosed in the sources we checked; the AML uplift is mid-market pricing. ClubsNSW-endorsed.
The bundled cross-product offering: CherryCheck (compliance) + Cherrypass (digital membership) + Cherrypay (Mastercard-branded cashless gaming). Sold as an integrated stack to large clubs and groups. The strongest commercial pitch CherryHub has — and the one a standalone compliance SaaS cannot match on breadth alone.
The decision shape differs by tier. LITE's comparison to Venue Axis is mostly “free incident register vs $99/mo year one working-surface platform.” CherryCheck PRO vs Venue Axis Full is the real mid-market fight. The CherryHub ecosystem vs Venue Axis is “bundled with payments and membership” vs “compliance specialist with vendor-agnostic integrations.”
Mobile-first compliance app distributed via ClubsNSW's ClubLIFE portal. Three purchasable modules — RCG/RSG, AML/CTF, RSA — each handling incident logging, workflows, talk-to-text capture, and reporting. Free CherryCheck LITE tier covers basic incident-register digitisation. The broader CherryHub ecosystem includes Cherrypass (digital membership) and Cherrypay (cashless gaming).
Strongest fit: NSW clubs already on the ClubsNSW procurement default, looking for the bundled membership + payments + compliance ecosystem.
Three-portal compliance platform (Floor App + Manager Desktop + CEO Portal) anchored to the L&GNSW CL1002 Club Licence Self-Audit Checklist — the 75-Part, 363-question document inspectors actually walk through. Floor App covers the same incident-capture surface (guided behaviour selection, photo attachment, AI voice-to-draft narrative) with severity auto-derived and welfare/CDD/SE auto-linked. ~76% of CL1002 answers come from operational data captured continuously; the rest is tracked, scheduled, evidenced. AML/CTF, FRT, AI helpers stack on top in the Full tier.
Strongest fit: clubs whose manager spends multiple hours per quarter reconstructing the CL1002 self-audit, or where AML/CTF depth and audit defensibility matter to the board.
The deepest difference between the two platforms is what they're built around.
CherryCheck's model is paper-replacement. Each compliance event — an incident, a welfare check, a patron risk-rating — is captured as a digital record that replaces what would otherwise be a paper logbook entry. Reports are built by querying those captured events at audit time. It's a fast, well-built capture experience, and for a club whose compliance burden is mostly "don't lose the paperwork," it works.
Venue Axis's model is an evidence graph anchored to obligations.Each CL1002 Part is a tracked record with a defined cadence, an assignee, an evidence trail, and a sign-off history. Operational events (incidents, training completions, SE lookups) feed those records as live evidence links — so the answer to "why was patron X welfare-flagged on 2026-03-15" isn't reconstructed at audit time, it was already linked when the welfare check was performed. The audit-pack export reads the graph; it doesn't generate reports from queries.
For sub-AML clubs running an incident register and a welfare log, both platforms produce comparable working trails. The architectural difference becomes load-bearing when the inspector asks a specific traceability question or when an AUSTRAC review wants a five-year reconstructed rationale for a particular decision. Evidence-graph traversal handles those in seconds; report-rebuilding from a captured-events table takes longer and the answer is fragile against schema changes over time.
Neither approach is "wrong." They're optimised for different jobs.
Bold cell indicates which side leads on that dimension. We've tried to be honest in both directions.
Architectural framing. CherryHub (specifically CherryCheck, the compliance product within the CherryHub ecosystem) is built around incident capture and modular reporting — RCG, AML/CTF, RSA each ship as separate purchasable modules. Venue Axis is built around the L&GNSW CL1002 self-audit checklist as a unified working surface — the 75 Parts and 363 questions of CL1002 each have a home in the platform, with ~76% answered automatically from operational data and the rest tracked, scheduled, and evidenced. Both produce inspector-ready records; the path from event to evidence is shaped differently.
Two places clearly. (1) ClubsNSW endorsement — CherryHub's endorsement and the free CherryCheck LITE tier on ClubLIFE give it default-procurement status that any new entrant has to work to overcome. (2) Ecosystem breadth — CherryHub bundles digital membership (Cherrypass) and cashless gaming (Cherrypay) alongside compliance, which is a stickier commercial pitch than standalone compliance SaaS can match.
Five architectural points. (1) CL1002 working surface — Venue Axis is positioned and structured around the regulator's actual audit checklist; CherryCheck markets feature modules. (2) Evidence-graph not checklist — every Venue Axis obligation links to a live evidence record (incident, training record, SE register lookup, governance item); CherryCheck's reporting model is closer to paper-replacement digitisation. (3) Server-side anomaly detection — Venue Axis runs structuring-pattern, rolling-window, and machine-velocity rules against EGM-system data; CherryCheck's AML model relies primarily on staff observation. (4) Three-portal architecture — Floor App + Manager Desktop + CEO Portal as separate role-aware surfaces sharing one record; CherryCheck is floor-first with exports for management. (5) Single SKU per venue size — Venue Axis Register+ ($99/mo year one, $129/mo after for sub-AML clubs) or Venue Axis Full (per-EGM, AML threshold and above), with universal 3-month free trial; CherryCheck operates a free LITE plus modular paid tiers per compliance area.
Big value gap. CherryCheck LITE is free, but it's only a digital incident register — no SMR workflow, no patron risk scoring, no FRT, no self-exclusion register integration, no welfare-check evidence, no Audit Pack export. It's a capture tool, not a compliance platform. Venue Axis Register+ at $99/month in year one ($129/month after) gives you all of that plus the Floor App, GM workflow inbox with plain-English scripts, welfare checks, self-exclusion lookups, immutable audit trail, RCG/RSA training tracking, and the CL1002 working surface — the same 75-Part document inspectors actually walk through. The math: clubs report 4–6 hours of club-manager time per L&GNSW self-audit cycle, run 4–10 times a year — Register+ collapses that to minutes via the Audit Pack export. Tens of hours of club-manager time saved every year on the self-audit alone, before counting inspector visits, board reporting, and AML/RGO evidence-trail work. The platform pays for itself in the first cycle.
For AUSTRAC AML/CTF threshold clubs, this is the clearest architectural split. CherryCheck PRO includes an AML/CTF module. On the public evidence, that module emphasises mobile observation capture; we could not verify a server-side anomaly engine or a documented multi-stage SMR workflow from public material. The standard CherryHub upgrade path to greater AML depth is to add BNDRY alongside CherryCheck PRO; the combined CherryCheck + BNDRY stack is not publicly priced in the sources we checked. Venue Axis Full delivers comparable AML depth in one platform: server-side anomaly engines (rolling-window structuring detection, machine-velocity rules), four-stage SMR process with co-sign and freeze-guard, patron risk scoring that weighs recent activity more heavily, and a record of why each alert was triggered that survives an AUSTRAC review of "why was this patron flagged on 2026-03-15." Single vendor; published mid-market pricing.
Practically, yes. Some clubs run CherryCheck LITE for the floor app while using Venue Axis for AML/CTF, governance, and audit-pack generation — they're not mutually exclusive at the technical layer. Both can ingest from the same EGM systems. The honest commercial answer: most clubs find dual-running creates duplicate-data-entry pain that cancels the benefit of either tool. The decision usually settles on which tool the manager uses for the quarterly CL1002 self-audit, because that's where the evidence trail consolidates.
CherryCheck pricing is opaque and modular — public estimates put the full module stack significantly above mid-market for most clubs, plus the cost of Cherrypass/Cherrypay if those are bundled. Venue Axis publishes pricing: Register+ at $99/month in year one ($129/month after) for sub-AML clubs, Venue Axis Full priced per EGM (from $377/month at 16 EGMs, scaling per machine, with annual discounts available). First three months free for every Australian club. The transparent published pricing is itself a positioning choice — clubs we've spoken to report that opaque modular pricing creates anxiety they don't need.
CherryCheck has it; Venue Axis doesn't. ClubsNSW endorses one platform at a time, and CherryCheck holds that position via the ClubLIFE distribution channel. The endorsement matters for procurement defaults — committee-driven decisions about "the standard" compliance platform. It matters less once a club's compliance officer asks specific questions like "can you show me why patron X was rated welfare-medium on a specific date?" or "what's the SMR process?" — at that level the architectural differences become the decision driver, not the endorsement. Our advice to clubs: evaluate both based on the actual operational workflow, not the procurement default.
The 75-Part audit document inspectors walk through, and how Venue Axis is structured around it.
5–7 minute survey that produces a practical migration path — fresh start, parallel run, assisted import, or white-glove.
Register+ at $99/mo in year one ($129/mo after) for sub-AML clubs, Full priced per EGM. First three months free for everyone.
Decision turns on operational fit, not feature lists. The cleanest way to compare is to start the trial — first three months free, no card up front, full export of your data if it's not the right fit.