Australian Gambling Laws
In Australia, most gambling options are legal and available to players throughout the country. What restrictions do exist are minor inconveniences to punters; they mainly deal with what Australian companies are allowed to offer, rather than what citizens are allowed to do with their own money.
At the moment, the Australian gambling industry is a period of change. The government is considering new regulations for pokies, while others would like to see a regulatory framework for online gambling, as well. But despite these changes, it appears that legal gambling in Australia should remain in place for a long time to come.
Legal Online Gambling in Australia
The very short version of the story is that online gambling is legal for players in Australia. However, there is much more to the story than this, especially from the perspective of gambling operators.
Many years ago, operating an online casino in Australia was legal. However, the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 made it illegal for anyone to operate an online casino in Australia. Interestingly, the Interactive Gambling Act did grandfather in the rights of existing online casino operators. Most notably, this meant that Lasseters Online remained in operation until late in 2008, when they closed shop.
On the other hand, the Interactive Gambling Act did nothing to change the legality of online gambling for players in Australia. There are still no laws prohibiting Australians from gambling online, and many foreign operators offer their services to Australian players to this day. Technically, these operators are likely in violations of Australian laws, but there has never been a serious attempt to prevent Australians from playing on these sites.
Online sports wagering and lotteries are legal, as long as they are associated with a land-based business. If a licensed bookmaker or lottery provider is regulated in Australia, they may also offer their products on the Internet to those locations in which they are licensed.
Legal Offline Gambling in Australia
Nearly all forms of offline, land-based gambling are legal in Australia, which helps to explain why Australians love to gamble as much as people of any nationality on Earth! From pokies and housie to sports wagering and lotteries, there’s no shortage of gambling opportunities available to the Australian player.
There’s a lot to cover here, so we’ve broken this section down by the various types of gambling available throughout Australia.
Casino Gambling in Australia
There are numerous casinos operating in Australia, including world famous destinations like Melbourne’s Crown Casino, and the Star City Casino in Sydney. Casino gambling is currently regulated under the Casino Control Act of 2006. This act lays out how Australian casinos must operate, and provides guidelines for the various gambling regulatory bodies should oversee casinos and other gambling operators in each state. For instance, Victoria’s gambling operators operate under supervision from the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation.
Along with pokies, Australian casinos are permitted to spread a number of worldwide casino favourites, including most popular table games. A partial list of the games that are allowed to be played in Australian casinos includes:
- Blackjack
- Roulette
- Baccarat
- Three Card Poker
- Pontoon
- Pai Gow
- Poker games, including Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud and Draw Poker
Poker Machines in Australia
Poker machines – more commonly referred to as pokies, and known as slot machines in many other countries – are incredibly popular throughout Australia. Pokies can be found not only in casinos, but also in numerous clubs and bars throughout the country, as they have practically become a national pastime.
Poker machines are completely legal, as long as the operator of the pokies has a license and is following all regulations put in place by their local regulatory board (for example, many states have minimum payout requirements for poker machines that must be adhered to). As you may well be aware of, there is currently much controversy about possible reforms to the regulation of pokies, which we will cover in the section below on the future of legal gambling in Australia. For now, though, we’d like to emphasize that regardless of the outcome of this legal fight, pokies will remain legal throughout the country.
Sports Betting
Many bookmakers operate legally in Australia, and wagers on sporting events are entirely legal provided that they are made through these legal channels. In addition, horse racing and dog racing are popular throughout the nation, as is betting on these races both at the track, and through other bookmakers who take bets on racing.
Housie
Housie – known as Bingo in the UK – is a popular activity that is entirely legal, and often used for fundraising and charity ventures. In addition, large bingo halls can be found in many locations, where players have the opportunity to win large cash prizes and compete against hundreds or thousands of other players.
For foreign readers, it’s worth noting that the game of Housie is not the same as American Bingo, which is popular in the United States and Canada, though the two games do share some similarities.
Lotteries
Several different operators currently offer lotteries in Australia. For starters, there is the national Saturday Lotto, which is known as Tattslotto, Gold Lotto or X Lotto in different areas of the country. Tuesday evenings see another national lottery game from Tattersall’s, known as Oz Lotto. In addition, there is the mostly national Monday & Wednesday Lotto game, which is played in all state and territories except for Queensland. On Thursday night, the weekly Powerball drawing is held. Numerous other state and national lottery and keno games are also popular.
Many other games that fall under the banner of lotteries are also available to Australians. Instants, also known as “scratchies,” are ticket games where players must scratch to reveal whether or not they have won a prize.
Many Australians also enjoy playing The Pools, the common name of the Australian Soccer Pools. The Pools essentially work as a lottery, but with winners being determined by the results of football matches from Australia or around the world.
Future of Legal Gambling in Australia
When it comes to the future of legal gambling in Australia, the name to watch is Andrew Wilkie. The independent MP for Denison is considered a key member of the Gillard government, as his support was critical in forming the coalition that kept her in power. This should matter to those who enjoy gambling, as Wilkie has consistently advanced anti-gambling legislation as one of his priorities.
The main battlefront for the moment appears to be poker machine regulation. While Wilkie has previously campaigned to remove poker machines entirely, the current effort from the Gillard government is aimed at adding restrictions to the machines in an apparent attempt to cut down on problem gambling.
Presuming the changes do go into effect, players will need to utilize smartcards in order to play pokies in pubs, clubs and casinos. All pokies would have smartcard readers installed. Players would have to swipe their card in order to play. The machine would then check to make sure the player was not banned from playing, and had not overstepped loss limits set by the player themselves as part of a mandatory pre-commitment scheme.
However, it is not yet certain that these changes will come to be; clubs and pubs have argued against the changes, saying that they may scare away recreational punters and make their businesses unviable.
With the attention surrounding the potential changes to pokies, online gambling has flown under the radar as of late. But that doesn’t mean that online gambling won’t see any changes. Wilkie has certainly made noise about turning his attention to the online gambling world.
What seems certain is that at some point, changes will come to the current state of the Australian online gambling. The question that remains to be answered is whether those changes will come in the form of regulation and licensing, or with a strictly enforced ban on online gaming. While the smart money would appear to be on a regulatory scheme, nothing is yet certain.
