Some Australian politicians, nodding to the country's gambling problem, want to ban online betting. Proposed legislation would prevent Australian gambling sites from accepting Australian customers, and betting via digital TV or wired mobile phones would also be a no-no. However, the proposed ban has more holes than the plot of Double Jeopardy.
Like last summer's failed U.S. online gambling bill, the Aussie legislation is rife with exceptions and subtleties wrangled by lobbying groups. (See the Sydney Morning Herald for the most detailed local dirt.) It wouldn't bust phone betting or online deployment of noncommercial amusements such as office horse-race pools (called "sweeps" locally). Australian gambling sites could still take bets from overseas, and Australian "punters" (gamblers) could surf to foreign betting sites.
Melbourne's The Age quoted the senator behind the legislation saying, "I think there will be a natural disincentive for most Australians to (visit foreign sites) because they will have no idea what the payout ratio is or the likelihood of ever receiving winnings." Then again, if all gamblers cared about payout ratio, no one would ever play the slots.
Remember Yahoo France's hassles with locally illegal Nazi paraphernalia auctions? The Aussie gambling ban raises similar questions about the Net and geography. "The proposal would require gaming companies here, not Internet service providers, to ensure any users of their online gambling services were not located physically in Australia," said the Canberra Times. As for those foreign gambling sites, ISPs would be supplied with offending URLs and be able to filter them out. The Sydney Morning Herald said ISPs would "be required to offer" the filters, while Newsbytes noted that voluntary filtering essentially asks "users to ban themselves" by installing censor-ware. Good luck.
Some say online gambling is more addictive than in-person betting because of its constant availability. But considering Oz's wealth of in-pub poker machines and horse-betting pools, we wonder how many of Australia's 290,000 problem gamblers even bother with online bets.
Gambling on Net Faces Local Ban
Sydney Morning Herald
Australian Government Set to Ban Net Gambling Services
Newsbytes
Oz Wants Net Gambling Ban (Reuters)
Wired News
Libs Bid to Ban Internet Gambling
Canberra Times
