Sports betting is legal in Australia. There are various sportsbooks around the country with state licenses that offer both online and offline(Photo credit: Melbourne Racing Club).
To put it simply, sports betting is legal in Australia. There are various sportsbooks around the country with state licenses that offer both online and offline services. There are merely two major provisions that need to be satisfied in order for a sports betting law between a licensed operator and a gambling individual to be considered legal. First, it must be ensured that any gambler must be over the legal gambling age of 18. Second, the betting operator must be able to obtain some kind of reasonable proof of identity from its customers. From there on, individual states have the freedom and liberty to determine their promotions and operations within the confines of the law. This is welcome news for many of the best Australia online casino sites on the market.
It was in June 2001 when the Australian Government passed its most significant piece of legislation surrounding gambling called the Interactive Gambling Act (IGA). It was essentially the IGA that outlawed private entities or institutions from offering or advertising real money gambling services for games like poker and sports to all Australian residents. This was a law that applied to all online operators, regardless of where they may have gotten their licenses from. However, it’s worth noting that only gambling operators are accountable to the IGA. That means that individual Australians are not bound by the law and can’t be punished for engaging in online gambling activities. There are also no laws that bar Australian residents from accessing offshore gambling websites and online casinos.
It’s also worth noting that not all forms of online gambling are prohibited under the IGA law. It is allowed for licensed operators to offer sports betting services as long as all of the bets occur prior to the start of a given event. That’s why the IGA prohibits licensed operators from offering “in-play” betting, which is a very popular sport betting trend around the world. Aside from that, online lotteries are also allowed under the IGA except for instant-win games.
As it stands operators and bookmakers are not happy with the provision prohibiting the in-play betting feature. Again, this is a sports betting dynamic that is very popular around the world, especially in Europe and North America. Various agencies and institutions have been clamoring for years to amend the law in order to accommodate in-play betting as a feature on sports betting sites. But as of now, there have been no significant movements with regards to changing the legislative provision. It’s also worth noting that offshore operators and betting service providers are either unaware of these provisions in the IGA or they just ignore it altogether. As such, some offshore betting platforms still provide in-play betting services to the Australian market. Again, since the IGA is a piece of legislation that only applies to operators, Australian residents can technically participate in these in-play getting schemes because any infringements would only hold the operator accountable.
Another important thing to note is that there are many offshore bookmakers or international online casinos that refuse to accept Australian visitors on their platforms because they don’t have licenses to operate in the region. This is not a practice that all offshore gambling platforms share. As has been mentioned, there are already a number of existing offshore sites that offer their services to Australian residents. It’s just worth mentioning that there are also a few offshore sites that refuse to accept Australian visitors altogether.
The gambling market in Australia is thriving, particularly when it comes to online activities. This is because Australia tends to have a very tech-oriented population that isn’t afraid of digital activities and services. Experts say that the market will continue to grow as technology becomes more sophisticated and as more people gain access to high-speed internet.
