An Australian Senator has launched an inquiry into the state of online poker in the country ahead of the expected implementation of amendments to Australia’s existing gambling law. The amendments in question will, among other things, practically prohibit the provision of online poker services to local customers.
Australian citizens interested to participate will be able to do so by submitting their details on a specially developed website. They will then be reached and encouraged to voice their opinion on the planned changes to the country’s online gambling (and poker in particular) regulatory environment.
Senator David Leyonhjelm was among the lawmakers to join the online poker effort and to support it staunchly in the Parliament. Back in March, when the bill was approved, Sen. Leyonhjelm promised that the fight was far from over and that he would do his best to spare online poker players from having to either relocate in order to be able to play online poker legally or to stop playing the game.
The Senator announced on his Facebook page earlier today that his motion for an online poker inquiry has been approved. The politician has said in a recent interview with PokerNews that opinions from players from other countries would also be more than welcome. According to Sen. Leyonhjelm, such opinions would shed light on how other governments have approached online poker and would show his fellow politicians that Australia has taken the wrong approach by practically banning the game.
News about the potential re-regulation of the Australian iGaming market first spread last November when Human Services Minister Alan Tudge introduced the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016 (IGA Bill 2016). The piece of legislation aimed to provide specific definitions of what was legal in terms of online gambling and what was not and to thus update the country’s original iGaming law – the Interactive Gambling Act 2001.
Under that original law, remote sports betting and lotteries were the only types of online gambling services to have been stated and explained clearly and in detail as legal in Australia. All other offshore gambling options available to local customers were neither specifically blacklisted as illegal, nor declared as explicitly legal.
The IGA Bill was intended to put an end to the legislative fuzziness that has surrounded the local market for the past 16 years. The proposed legislation became the subject of lengthy legislative debates and broad media coverage to be eventually passed in the Australian Parliament in March. There are certain legal procedures to be completed before the bill takes effect. Some hope that a miraculous turn of events will prevent this from happening, others expect the bill to become law this summer.
Generally speaking the proposed and approved legislation will put an end to the unlicensed provision of iGaming services, online poker included. However, it will be practically impossible for interested offshore gambling operators to apply for a license for the provision of this type of services.
The proposed and approved amendments to Australia’s online gambling laws met vocal opposition from the country’s online poker community. A group of local players – the Australian Online Poker Alliance – was reaching politicians during the bill’s discussion process in an attempt to have online poker excluded from the new regulatory regime.
The introduction of the IGA Bill has already taken its toll with several iGaming operators leaving the local market even before it was voted. Online casino brand Vera&John was the first to bid farewell to its Australian players in late 2016, followed by 888poker in early 2017. Online gambling operators 32Red and Gaming Innovation Group were the next to leave.
PokerStars is still accepting Australian players, but it is only matter of time before the world’s largest poker room closes its premises for those same players. Last year, when the IGA Bill was introduced, the operator said that it would leave, as soon as the proposal takes effect.
