Australia to looking to overhaul web gaming
Posted by Bev Freeman on 10 Nov 2009 at 13:11
Australia looks set to become one of the latest countries to overhaul its online gambling industry in effort to pick up some of the estimated 634,000,000 US$ its residents spend on unregulated gaming sites based abroad.
Although current laws in Australia allow online gambling, specific to horse racing and sports, it prevents local firms from setting up their own game operations, which covers casino games such as poker, roulette and blackjack.
Recent reports have said the situation should be relaxed so the industry can be better regulated.
According to the Financial Times, a report by the Productivity Commission said: "In its unregulated form, online gaming is available 24 hours a day, allows credit betting, has no intrinsic restrictions on bet sizes, has no capacity for venue staff to observe and assist people in trouble, reaches new groups of people who may be vulnerable to the medium (including those under age), and may not have any regulatory oversight to ensure probity,"
It added opening of the sector would better increase competition in the gambling sector and provide additional tax revenue for the government.
