Gaming and Wagering Commission

4.153The Committee recommends national regulation require online WSP staff to undertake research-informed training that demonstrates a sound awareness of the legal obligations and guidelines for practice in responsible service of online gambling. BetStop has the potential to be a powerful consumer protection tool once there is a requirement that a customer’s identity is verified before they are allowed to open an account. Until then, it is likely to be effective for most Australians, but may not offer protections for those who are at the highest risk of gambling harm. While this should not further delay the rollout of BetStop, the integration of identity pre-verification should be of the highest priority. 4.138The Committee recommends that, in developing national regulation, the Australian Government conduct a risk assessment of available payment methods. Payment methods that do not minimise the risk of criminal activity and gambling harm should be prohibited from being used for online gambling.

5 The structure of this report

This licence is valid for a maximum period of 6 months and may not be renewed. Pending the results of all the required character checks a Full Casino Employee Licence may then be issued by the Commission. This Licence is issued subject to licence conditions and is the only licensed casino in the ACT.

Most prominently, the federal government has taken more than 14 months to respond to the Murphy Inquiry into online gambling, which handed down 31 recommendations in 2023 with multi-partisan backing. The delayed response has left big gaps in consumer protection, and demonstrates once again how politically challenging it is to achieve good policy in this space. dragon link slots online real money The federal government has responsibility for online gambling but is yet to step up and really own this role.

2.2 …but political risk is the biggest barrier to reform

The inquiry recommended that a national online gambling regulator and a national ombudsman be set up to deal with complaints against the online bookmakers, bypassing the current system based in Darwin. In June 2023, a federal parliamentary inquiry chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy made 31 recommendations to reduce harms from the online betting industry. 4.155The Committee recommends national regulation prohibit commissions being paid to staff or any third party involved in the referral or provision of online gambling to an individual. 4.150The Committee recommends that the Australian Government should investigate the benefits and feasibility of requiring online WSPs to apply a standard behavioural algorithm to reduce online gambling harm.

The purpose of the amendments were to change the definition of a cruise ship so that intrastate cruises were permitted to conduct casino gaming. Prior to the 2011 amendment to the Casino (Burswood Island) Agreement Act 1985 (“the CBI Agreement Act”) the Western Australian Government was prevented from authorising casino gaming other than in the Burswood Casino (now known as Crown Perth). The purpose of this policy is to provide guidance for cruise ships with onboard casino gaming facilities travelling through or docking in Western Australian waters. You will need this licence if you intend to establish and operate a casino in New South Wales. One must be a restricted gaming licence granted to operate the Barangaroo restricted gaming facility.

Gaming and Wagering Commission

• Industry lobbyists claim that restricting or banning gambling ads would jeopardise the financial viability of sport, or the free-to-air TV industry.
• Representatives from casino regulators across Australia met in Sydney to increase dialogue around shared regulatory issues, streamline touchpoints, and discuss potential areas for collaboration.
• Past reform efforts have been killed by highly organised, well-funded industry campaigns.
• New casinos may also offer a wider variety of roulette games than established casinos, which has been seen with some concern.
• The two casinos in question are Lucky Creek Casino and Sloto Cash Casino while the prominent ad placement for the other casinos has been there for awhile, such as sticky wilds and increasing multipliers.

Following two separate investigations, the commission found that both Ladbrokes and BetEasy had breached conditions of their licences, and both companies were fined. Former financial planner Gavin Fineff is currently serving a nine-year sentence for defrauding more than $3 million from his clients to feed a gambling habit fuelled by VIP inducements. “He said, ‘We’ve never cancelled a licence. We can, but we never have.’ He said, ‘We are unashamedly the racing and gambling jurisdiction and are open for business,'” she said. Ms Levin met with seven gambling regulators in Europe and the UK as part of a Churchill Fellowship. “I heard Alastair Shields proudly say to the industry participants that two of their commissioners owned racehorses,” she said.

Introducing friction in the process, such as having to call or text, may reduce the likelihood people increase their deposit limits. Increased friction could also reduce limit setting,113 although the Committee notes this would be less of an issue if there was a mandatory minimum limit. Most gamblers’ spending will be unaffected by our proposed maximum limits (Figure 4.4). For those who choose to gamble, mandatory pre-commitment with maximum loss limits would ensure they no longer lose more than they can afford. The federal government should establish a national pre-commitment system for online gambling, and state governments should roll out state-wide pre-commitment for pokies.

If Australian governments are serious about preventing gambling harm, they will need to bolster their efforts and take action to both reduce the pervasiveness of gambling in Australia and make gambling safer. The gambling industry’s political power lies in its ability to influence elections. They can make their presence known locally, with pokies providers in almost every electorate, stoke community fears about loss of jobs and services (Chapter 4), and they exert financial influence too. Most venue-based consumer protections rely on individual staff to track gambling risk and know when and how to step in – a difficult task which staff have little incentive to undertake.