The Federal Government says the “success” of its cashless welfare card trial means it will continue.

The cards limit welfare recipients’ access to cash, quarantining 80 per cent of their payments so they cannot be used to buy alcohol or gamble.

The remaining 20 per cent goes into participants' regular bank accounts and can be withdrawn as cash.

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge has confirmed the cards will continue to be used in Kununurra and Ceduna, with six-monthly reviews.

“The card is having the result of reducing the alcohol, the gambling and the drug abuse,” he said.

Mr Tudge based his decision on a 175-page review by Orima Research of the year-long trial, commissioned by the government.

The review included stakeholders, participants and their families.

A quarter of the people using the card who also drink alcohol reported not drinking as often, while a third of gamblers reported having curbed that habit too.

Less than a third of participants answered yes when asked; “Since being on the cashless debit/Indue card [has this] happened to you: You've/the family has been able to save more money than before”.

But the researchers found some disturbing ways of subverting the system, including “a couple of examples of suspected prostitution” and retailers “overcharging for a product or services and then refunding the difference in cash”.

The review found overall crime appeared to have reduced in Ceduna, but crime rates in Kununurra remained the same.

Mr Tudge said the crime figures were not conclusive.

“I simply point to the local police who say that this is a good intervention and that they support it and I also point to other community leaders who believe that there has been a reduction in some of the assaults and domestic violence as well,” he said.

“But let's get the hard data and that will come out in the final evaluation at the end of June.”

Mr Tudge would not be drawn on rumours that a nationwide rollout of the cashless welfare card scheme would be revealed in May’s federal budget.

“I get in big trouble if I talk about the budget before it's released and so I don't plan on doing it now,” he said.

Ian Trust, the executive director of the WA Aboriginal development organisation the Wunan Foundation said people felt slighted by introduction of the card.

“People in Kununurra see me as one of the perpetrators of infecting this sort of card on them,” he said.

“But what we had before the card, which is just open sort of slather of people buying heaps of alcohol with the money that they get, the amount of damage it was doing, I think that this is definitely an improvement on what we had previously.”

Mr Trust backed a nationwide rollout.

“Yes I do, I think this is a more responsible way of actually delivering support and social services to our people regardless of what colour they are,” he said.