The Australian government may have been a bit surprised this month with Betfair stepping up and asking the government to consider tighter gambling controls in the country. The key issue according to the online gambling and betting group is the fact that Australia currently ineffectively bans internet casino transactions. Although Australia has a huge betting market, casino, poker, roulette and other internet based chance games are specifically prohibited. But like the US, the Australian government has not come up with an effective way to actually stop Aussies from accessing these chance based gaming sites. And the result is an increase in the number of problem gamblers in the country according to Betfair.

The Aussies are still able to access the online casinos despite the government bans – and that means that a lot of gambling revenue is leaving the country and the government also has no control over which gambling companies are accessing Australian gamblers. The current regulatory void means that gambling sites are not held to any specific standards. With proper regulation the Aussie government could license the safe online casino gambling sites and take a portion of the revenue in taxes to build problem gambling support programs. Betfair is the unlikely champion of this new initiative in the Aussie government.

To further Betfair’s current claims, the Australian Productivity Commission concluded that the Aussie blocks on offshore online casinos are not effective and are not doing their job. This news coupled with Betfair’s analysis on the situation should be enough to at least generate some new discussion on the topic.

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