The International Association of Gaming Regulators has established an Illegal Gambling Working Group (IGWG) in response to the challenges regulators face from illegal and offshore gambling activities. The IGWG will facilitate information sharing between jurisdictions, with the possibility of more formal means of collaboration and intelligence sharing. Of the 31 recommendations in the report “You win some, you lose more”, released on Wednesday, the call for a phased, comprehensive ban on online gambling advertising within three years is the most consequential. Ads for online gambling should be banned across all media and at all times within three years to combat the manipulation of an “impressionable and vulnerable audience”, a parliamentary inquiry has recommended. The Survey found online gamblers are nearly three times more likely than offline gamblers to be problem gamblers and about twice as likely to be at-risk gamblers. Online gamblers were ‘significantly more likely to experience at least one harm to self (34.0%) compared to non-online gamblers (15.6%)’.

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We are very grateful to the data custodians and research participants for their valuable contributions to this work. Gambling is a major public policy issue in Australia, affecting the health and wellbeing of individuals and families in a range of ways. Estimates suggest that Australians lose approximately $25 billion on legal forms of gambling each year, representing the largest per capita losses in the world (Letts 2018; QGSO 2022). If you don’t get a satisfactory response, you can lodge a complaint with the government agency that issued the provider’s licence—this should be displayed on the gambling provider’s website. If you believe an online provider www.insidermonkey.com has breached your consumer rights, you should talk to the business first to give them the opportunity to explain or investigate the issue. The policy applies to all online, audio, video and print ads, and all forms of gambling other than lotteries.

IS FIRST CASINO LICENCE IN BERMUDA SET TO BE ISSUED?

As at date of this letter, these services continue to contravene the IGA Interactive Gaming Act by providing prohibited gambling services in breach of Australian laws,” the ACMA letter to Silvania said. The Australian online gambling regulator has written to and met with government officials from Curaçao regarding new law changes in the Dutch Caribbean country to clamp down on its huge online casino industry. State and territory prevalence studies suggest that a very small proportion of people seek help for gambling-related harms.

With this in mind, online gambling operators are taxed under the terms of any relevant licence, and this is how the Australian government makes its money from online gambling games. Web searches and traffic to illegal online casinos surged during the depth of Australia’s COVID-19 lockdown, despite the government regulator’s "whack-a-mole" attempt to block unlicensed offshore gambling websites. Still, seeing as the law on internet gambling has changed in the past, it would be ignorant to rule out the possibility that it might change again. In 2011 and 2019, national telephone surveys were conducted to estimate the prevalence of online and land-based modes of gambling in Australia (Hing et al. 2014, 2021). The research found overall gambling participation (online and land-based modes combined) decreased from 64.3% in 2010–11 to 56.9% in 2019; this was mostly attributable to a decline in land-based gambling during that time, while online gambling increased by 9.4%.

Those most commonly affected were family members (including spouses/partners, other relatives, siblings, former spouse/partners), friends, and work colleagues. The most common harms experienced due to another person’s gambling were feeling angry, distressed or hopeless about their gambling, and experiencing greater tension and Playfina Australia conflict in their relationships. Reduction of available spending money or savings, loss of sleep and less enjoyment from time spent with people they care about were also commonly reported. More men than women gambled on every product included in the survey (for example, sports, racing, pokies; Figure 2).

• Interactive gambling (including internet-based gambling) is regulated under both Australian and Queensland law.
• Around 2 in 5 (38%) adult Australians gambled at least weekly, though this differed by gender (48% for men and 28% for women).
• Aussie Internet users are often unsure about the legality of gambling online, with the question regularly asked; is online gambling legal in Australia in 2017?
• "It’s not illegal for you to gamble online. It’s just illegal for the companies overseas to offer you to gamble online," he says.

Research conducted in 2022 found that almost half (46%) of Australians aged 18 and over who gambled would be classified as being at-risk of, or already experiencing, gambling harm (low, moderate, or high-risk PGSI categories combined). Rowland said the government’s record on harm minimisation was “strong” and she was committed to reducing harms from online gambling. “We’re committed to reducing harms from online gambling and we’re implementing a national self-exclusion register,” she said. The prohibition of internet-based poker machines (also known as Electronic Gaming Machines or EGMs) and casinos to Australians attracts little media attention despite the fact it has been an utter failure. ACMA says its requests to internet service providers have led to blocks on 652 gambling sites.

Mr Barnard has now engaged a lawyer in Curacao and is considering taking legal action against two online casinos, which he says failed to recognise and stop his problem gambling. It’s illegal to provide gambling services to people in Australia without an Australian licence, but scores of sites are available online. In a nutshell, it is currently prohibited for any online casino based anywhere in the world to provide gambling services to anyone from Australia, as of September 2017. The National Telephone Survey of the 2019 Interactive Gambling Study asked a representative sample of Australian adults whether they had been personally and negatively affected by another person’s gambling in the past 12 months (Hing et al. 2021).

Thomas Vives-Kerl, a keen surfer and skater from Sydney’s northern beaches, had just started a locksmith apprenticeship when he fell into an online gambling trap that would make his life unbearable. If you or someone you care about is at risk of gambling-related harm, reach out to Gambling Help Queensland for free and confidential advice and support. You can also check licensed gambling providers on the Australian Communications and Media Authority website. In February Rowland came under pressure after revelations she accepted campaign donations from a gaming company before the May election. The committee inquiry was set up in September after a referral from the social services minister, Amanda Rishworth. After months of debate about betting ads, including the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, labelling them “annoying” and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, calling for a ban on ads during sports matches, the inquiry has provided a blueprint to shut them down entirely.