The delay comes as the head of one of the city's biggest clubs, the Tradies, says there are too many poker machines in the city and a trading scheme will only make a difference if it comes with a fewer machines.

The trading scheme will allow an extra 51 up-to-date poker machines in clubs as they buy and convert licenses from hotels and pubs, which have the old machines. It will also allow clubs to sell machines between them and to take machines off the floor without losing them.

The scheme was to have been introduced into the ACT Assembly over the next fortnight, but has been delayed till May while the laws are drafted.

It comes with a tax cut for most of the city's 30 club groups on July 1. Most clubs will save $18,000 a year in tax under the new regime, but it will be paid for by five big clubs, with the Dickson Tradies the biggest loser under the tax changes.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union-owned club, will pay about $140,000 a year extra in tax, a 4.4 per cent increase. The group's Woden Tradies club, though, will pay $18,000 a year less.

The other big losers are the Labor party's Labor club group, up for about $100,000 more a year in tax (1.9 per cent), and the Raiders group, which will pay an extra $140,000 (2.8 per cent).

The Southern Cross Club group will pay about $80,000 more and the Hellenic clubs about $38,000 more.

Every other club will get a tax cut in July, with the biggest winner the Tuggeranong Rugby Union Club, whose annual tax bill will be cut by about $61,000.

The chief executive of Clubs ACT Jeff House said clubs would prefer not to be paying any extra tax in what were the worst trading conditions in their history, but accepted the package given its advantage for small and medium clubs.

"I'm disappointed that the approach that the government has taken in terms of delivering on an eight-year-old promise to provide tax relief to the industry is one where the only tax relief that industry finally receives, it pays for itself," he said.

Tradies group chief executive Rob Docker said the group was prepared to wear the increase to help smaller clubs survive and in light of the wider package of changes being introduced by the government.

"We've got to help and we've got to make sure the community club model as we have it in Canberra is not compromised into the future because clubs are a very important part of the social fabric," he said. "If it means the Tradies taking a hit from a taxation point of view we might not necessarily like it, but at the end of the day, we want the club industry to survive and continue to thrive."

But Mr Docker said there were too many poker machines in the city.

"You've got to start a trading machine scheme with the right number of machines," he said. "We don't need as many machines as we have."

Fewer machines would ensure clubs used them more productively and make them more valuable, he said. Canberra's machines made an average $95 a day before tax, compared with NSW where machines were making closer to $200.

Clubs were too reliant on gambling dollars and needed incentives to diversify, especially given tougher gambling laws, dwindling interest among young people, and the growth in online gambling nationally, Mr Docker said.

Clubs also needed more certainty about ACT gaming legislation so they could make good decisions about the future of their businesses, and to ensure financiers weren't spooked by the regulatory uncertainty.

Gaming Minister Joy Burch's new regime includes little or no overall reduction in the number of machines. She has abandoned the target of reducing machines to 4000 (a target in place for some time with no progress achieving it) in favour of a new ratio of 15 machines for every 1000 adults. The ratio, to take effect three years after the scheme begins, will allow clubs to have perhaps 4785 machines in the first year, depending on population, compared with the current 4906.

Ms Burch said the 2012 review of ACT taxes, concluded that the ACT had among the lowest gaming machine tax rates in the country.

The government had considered options to "improve progressivity of tax rates", and proposed increasing the tax-free threshold from $180,000 to $300,000 a year, and increasing the tax rate for revenue of more than $7.5 million a year from 21 per cent from 23 per cent.