Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy today confirmed his government will not be pursuing a recommendation to license and regulate online poker tournaments for a five-year trial period.
In the final report on its review of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, the Department of Broadband, Communcations and the Digital Economy had recommended the Act be amended “to enable and encourage” currently prohibited egaming sites to become licensed in Australia, as long as they agreed to “cease offering higher-risk online gaming services to Australians and only offer online tournament poker.”
However, Conroy today confirmed the government would not be “pursuing the recommended changes relating to the trial of online tournament poker or ‘in-play’ sports wagering”. He said Australia needed to agree “[a] nationally consistent approach to harm minimisation and consumer protection” before considering such recommendations further.
Further to the recommendations previewed in the Department’s preliminary report published last May, the government had commissioned a 115-page report by auditors KPMG, published in November 2012, on the potential size of the in-play betting and tournament poker markets. This estimated that the latter, depending on player behaviour and the tax regime, would generate AU$290m-AU$360m in 2013-14, growing to AU$452m-AU$563m in 2021-22, reaping tax revenue of AU$43m-AU$134m in 2013-14, growing to AU$68m-AU$209m in 2021-22.
Of potential concern to Australia’s online bookies, which include bet365, Paddy Power-owned Sportsbet and William Hill-owned Sportingbet and Centrebet, was Conroy’s confirmation that the government would, as part of the new national standards for online gambling, be pursuing the recommendations of the review to impose new limits on player spend, deposits made, bets placed and time spent playing, as well as making it mandatory for punters to set their own deposit limits.
Conroy added that the government would also be following up recommendations to introduce stricter rules around lines of credit handed out by online bookies to punters, as well as on inducements, including limits on the payment of commissions to third parties such as affiliates aimed at encouraging Australian players to open new accounts.
The government’s pledges in the light of the review were however not sufficient for the country’s highest profile anti-gambling campaigner Nick Xenophon, the South Australia Senator elected on a “no pokies” ticket. Xenophon branded the report’s conclusions in support of eventual licensing “a cop-out” which could unleash a new wave of problem gambling. He argued that the Federal Government should instead strengthen and enforce the current law “to stop leakage”.
Reflective of its recommendations in relation to tournament poker, the final report argued that: “The IGA may, in fact, be exacerbating the risk of harm because of the high level of usage by Australians of prohibited services which may not have the same protections that Australian licensed online gambling providers could be required to have.”
It went on to draw the conclusion that “[t]he effectiveness of the IGA in reducing the risk of harm” could be increased by encouraging popular but currently prohibited websites “to become licensed in Australia” on condition they stopped offering “higher risk types of online gambling” such as slots, arousing the ire of Xenophon.
Article written by Stephen Carter
off course the horrible “pokies” and the disgusting horseracing percentages are fine and don’t do anyone any harm