Are online casinos legal in Australia?

Australia has a very colourful past when it comes to gambling. Quite simply, Australian’s love to gamble. Whether it be on the horse races, football or any other sports, the lottery or whether it be on the pokie machines or table games in a physical land based casino, or even two-up games on Anzac Day Australia has one of the highest per capita spends on gambling throughout the world.  So, are online casinos legal in Australia? Let’s have a look at that.

Australia has to be technically one of the most gambler friendly nations on the planet. Up to 80% of the adult population has wagered money on some sort of sport, casino game or lottery at some stage of their life. Horse racing remains one of the most popular sports and past times within the country and is completely sustained on the gambling revenue that is generated as a result of Australian’s loving to have a punt. But, when it comes to online casinos the Australian government take a very harsh stance and this is something that is almost hypocritical of the Australian psyche and their love for gambling.

Quite simply, when it comes to online casinos in Australia it is impossible to gain a license to operate them within the actual borders of the country. The primary concern is the difficulty in regulating the internet and ensuring that the online casinos themselves follow legislation to the exact requirements that the government would expect. One of the first online casinos in operation anywhere int he world was an Australian casino operated by Lasseters who in recent years were forced into closure due to the legal requirements to ban US based players who made up a large portion of their operating revenue. In 2001 the Australian government made it almost impossible to gain an online casino license and this left Lasseters in the very interesting position of being the only legally operating casino within Australia, but the result of closure to US players left the online operation unviable.

So, although it is illegal to operate a online casino gambling enterprise within Australian borders (the content cannot be hosted on an Australian server) it is not illegal for Australian’s to bet at online casinos. But, there is a catch to this though. It is actually illegal for online casinos to offer gambling services to Australian’s. This essentially makes any Australian legal entity potentially liable for prosecution for doing so. The other side to this is though that entities existing outside of the Australian legal reach can continue to accept Australian players as is it not actually illegal for Australian’s to play at online casinos.

It is quite a weird position to be in for Australian’s who love to gamble online. The government has made it impossible to operate online casinos from within Australian borders and has made it illegal to offer online casino games to Australian’s (sports betting is perfectly legal though) which means that Australian entities cannot legally operate online casinos. But the government is perfectly happy to accept the tax revenue that is generated from the thousands of pokie machine that exist in pubs and clubs around the country and from legal sports betting which is perfectly legal and well regulated within the country. Perhaps the laws need a rethink and  the freedom that the country is supposed to offer should be extended to the information and activities allowed on the internet. Ultimately it all comes down to the ability to regulate cyberspace and the fear that is generated within the government by realistically not being able to police the world wide web and capture the tax revenue they would like to earn.

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