The Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2017, an Australian law issued by the Australian Senate regulating native and off-shore online gambling, was finally passed. All the changes made from the last year’s bill were approved, and these changes are predominantly concerned with the absolute ban on many wagering activities in Australia. This includes making illegal of all online casinos and similar sites in the country.
The bill was approved by both houses in the Senate just last week. As of today, online casinos are already terminating their services in Australia. The ban is expected to fully come into effect in 30 days. This is no doubt a devastating blow to casinos which offered their services to Australian players. Fable Casino is one of them and regrets having to leave the Australian market.
Why Did Australia Ban Online Casinos?
The main reason for online casino ban in Australia was the increase in gambling addiction. Australia was notorious for being one of the worst countries in the world in regards to that. Yearly losses to gambling per adult were around $1,000 for the last few years, so such a drastic measure wasn’t uncalled for.
The passing of this bill was probably long coming, but it took the Senate quite some time to make the move. Gambling is a lucrative industry pretty much everywhere, even more so in Australia. The taxes collected from gambling and the boost to country’s overall GDP made it difficult to achieve common ground.
Senator Leyonhjelm, probably the harshest supporter of legalised gambling, expressed doubt about the updated bill. He believes that these changes are unacceptable and won’t solve the issue of problem gambling. According to him, the players will find illegal ways to gamble. We can’t tell if that’s true or not, but we will find out soon enough.
Situation In The UK And Other Countries
Australia is not the only country where online gambling is illegal. The United States is another well-known example, where only a few gambling types are allowed. Countries like Canada, China, Turkey, Poland and a number of others are no different.
On the other hand, when it comes to the UK, it’s the opposite. The UK is one of the easiest countries in the world to gamble in. Instead of banning gambling altogether, it focuses on regulating it to prevent problem gambling and protect the players via strict social responsibility implementation.
Seeing that gambling is also very popular in the UK, should we be concerned that the same fate awaits the UK players? We believe it’s very unlikely. If the UK Gambling Commission decided to ban gambling, the country would simply lose too much. More than 100,000 people would lose jobs and billions of pounds would fail to turn up at the HMRC.
While these reasons didn’t stop Australia, they are too lethal for the UK. Problem gambling isn’t as much of a problem there as it is in Australia. It was this precise reason that made other losses look like a necessary sacrifice to the Australian Senate.
Instead of that, we just recently saw a new gaming duty come into effect in the UK. It had forced some casino operators to withdraw from the market due to increased taxes, but that’s all. Other operators will take its place, so the industry as a whole is thriving. At the same time, the country will even increase its tax income from gambling and the players won’t be forced to search for illegal means to enjoy their favourite hobby.
