Australia is in the midst of trying to revamp their online betting laws but no one is able to guess if this will mean stricter or more lenient regulations. This Tuesday the news outlet The Australian have reported that the Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbot had ordered Social Services Minister Scott Morrison to review the 2001 Interactive Gambling Act with a focus on updating it to better fit the current technological landscape.
Morrison tried to urge stakeholders and the public to not blow this out of proportion yet, saying that the government had “no preconceived ideas” with regards to the review and they promised that there would be a lot of opportunities for stakeholders to give their input once the process starts.
Amongst all of the changes that will take place it is expected that tougher measures to deal with internationally licensed online operators beaming their signals into Australia will be taken. They are also hard at work on a national self-exclusion register, under which all Australian online bookies would know which players to avoid. There might be a very low chance that Australia will finally allow online casino and/or poker products.
It is less clear what the fate of in-play betting is, given that currently it is only allowed when placed over the phone. But recent advancements in the industry with which you can do this through other methods means that politicians will have to either rewrite the laws and explicitly ban these workarounds or just embrace the reality and accept that in-play betting is about to change drastically.