Tony Abbott on Online Gambling

June 1, 2012

Earlier in the week Stephen Conroy, who is the Communications and Broadband Minister of Australia put forward a list of 30 possible amendments to the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001. These changes, if implemented, would open up the online gambling market within Australia considerably.

However, in response to this proposal, the Federal Coalition, and specifically Tony Abbott the leader of the opposition, responded by declaring quite emphatically that it/they would oppose any moves to make online gambling more accessible in Australia.

Tony Abbott went on to say that he is not against gambling in its essence, but that he is against online gambling becoming more accessible to the citizens of Australia, especially younger people. Tony Abbott stated that, "If it goes ahead, every computer is a casino."

The basis of the proposed changes to the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 was the fact that many Australian citizens are already using online casino operators who are based overseas, and that the Australian government was missing out on this tax revenue stream. Currently online casino operators have to operate within very strict boundaries in Australia, and the revisions to the act were intended to make this situation less restrictive. However, Senator Xenophon was quick to state his opinion that this argument is fundamentally flawed, and that it was only two years ago that Senator Conroy was taking the opposite view, that opening up the online gambling market in Australia would be too risky. Senator Xenophon posed the question as to whether the government was now seeing online gambling and tax revenues from online casino operators as its next major income stream?

We can see that although the situation is under discussion, there is major heavyweight opposition to taking any steps which would make the provision of online gambling services by online casino operators easier in Australia. Whilst the USA continues to revise its policies on online gambling, and many major online casino operators are beginning to target the USA as the next fat market, it is interesting to see the Australian government taking such a hard line on what is fast becoming a booming industry generating billion in tax revenue.

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