Slashdot Mirror
Australians Barred From Gambling Online
An Anonymous Coward writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is running a story today about online gambling. Australians will be banned from gambling on online casinos -- domestic or offshore.
The deal, made on the day before Federal Parliament goes into winter recess, means that in six months' time interactive gambling operators will not be able to enforce debts owed by Australians gambling on their sites."
First of all, as an Australian, let me point out that we are not all complete bloody morons - just the government. All these stupid little "forwarding email illegal in aus", and "Australian Gov't Censors The Internet" and now "Australians Barred From Gambling Online". Ah, trust me it's the meddling wowser politicians, the people don't agree with this shit.
I'm hang my head in shame, i didn't vote for these bastards - but i guess i should've blown them up or something...
Just, please don't think we are morons due to the actions of the corrupted few.
Insurance is even closer to gambling than share trading. When you take out insurance, you are taking a bet on something bad happening, so that if it happens you have the winnings to compensate. And yet insurance is emminently respectable. If you need insurance for something really strange, you can actually go to a bookmakers and ask them for odds.
Oooh no! so they like what? block 203.* and 198.* from gambling sites... ever heard of public proxys? and it wouldn't be hard to set up an offshore bank account, so theres no way to tell whether Im from Australia. they tried doing the same thing to porn sites a while back, the bill actually got passed, but they reversed it after realising that it was only stopping adults from accessing porn. kids just used proxys ;-)
For a start, it is possible to run a credit card in another country. The bank may of course add conditions like having a deposit account with suffficient to cover the card limit.
Secondly, if an Australian knowingly incurs a debt that s/he hopes not to pay because local legislation prohibits it, that would be fraud.
Thirdly it requires the Ozzie banks to know all the Casinos. Nearly as hard as keeping track of all the porn sites, especially since they now have an interest in not looking like Casinos. (How about a bill saying "payment for software download"...)
A quite probable result would be for Ozzie credit cards to be refused everywhere, not just in Casinos. After all if it is legal for the Government to block the payment of one type of debt, they can block all. Say if they are unhappy with the balance of payments. Look for some strong opinions from the major credit card companies on this sort of thing.
Ok.. I must speak up, being thrashed at Cricket I can deal with but the following insults me :-
"British are all the Same"
Please don't counter stereotypes with stereotypes, if he is one of the 'few idiots' then we are clearly not 'all the same'. I'm certainly not... and I don't know anyone fool enough not to want to bask in Australia in the sunshine, lucky buggers.
The guy's an idiot, and if he had any balls he would make his opinions known to people's faces, he'd have his arse kicked from pom to Aus and back again in no time.
Ignore him.
The bit that makes your debts to the online casinos nullified would also nullify any gains. Like someone else said, they do it by erasing the transactions from your credit card.
If he keeps pushing Ralf off the course on the first term family dinners at Chez Schumacher are going to be a little tense!
I have to wonder about the officiating at that race - Ralf was punished harshly for something Michael also did to an extent. I wonder if they'd didn't want to make sure it would be a nice clear victory for Michael? Wouldn't look nice if the two brothers knocked each other off in their home GP!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Australians can get connectivity to overseas casinos - no problem. No blocking by ISPs, no need to create blacklists, etc.
The Australian Government, within the next six months, is required to implement additional legislation which will prohibit banks from honoring credit card debits originating from transactions with casinos. They'll still have to honor credits, though. You can tell whether a credit card has been issued by an Australian bank by looking at the first four digits.
When an Australian gambles at an overseas casino and wins, they'll get to keep their winnings, because the casino will post a credit to their credit card account. When they lose, though, the casino will attempt to post a debit transaction... which the banks will be required, by legislation, to dishonor.
So Australians will still be able to gamble, but they'll never lose.
So there's no need to prohibit Australians from visiting online casinos overseas, because online casinos overseas will simply refuse to do business with them. You have an Australian credit card number? Sorry, that card isn't accepted here.
This isn't a technological issue, it's a financial "solution" to the "problem" of online gambling. Why bother banning it when the casinos themselves will do it for you?
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I tried an internal modem, but it hurt when I walked.
Does this mean that if the Australians happen to be abroad (offshore) they will be banned from gambling too? ;-)
Jacco (to e-mail me, please remove all yourclothes) /var/log
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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
The goal is to provide consistency on gamlbing regulation. Now if you're opposed to gambling restrictions, then that's fine, but those objections should be voiced in that context. In Australia we have gambling laws, and the government's doing what it can to make that uniform.
I was very opposed to the internet censorship legilsation we've had through. It's stupid because it's unworkable. However, this seems like a fairly reliable way of peventing Australians from participating in online gambling. As such, I don't see it's such a bad thing.
There's a degree of hysteria towards Australia now ewhen it comes to internte regulation. While our legilsators have done a poor job on a couple of points (the federal government's Online Services Ammendment Bill thing, and the Soth Australian government's brainless follow-up to it), it's not really any worse than legislation I've seen of an equally poor standard in several othre first world countries. I think the dire commentary coming from many posters here is unjustified.
Believe with me, my saplings.
"...in six months' time interactive gambling operators will not be able to enforce debts owed by Australians gambling on their sites."
C'mon people, I credited my geekish countrymen and women with more nous than that displayed so far...
Judging by the slashbite leading this story (and lo, what other source would I rely on for nationally significant news) Australia is headed for the greatest period of risk-free, debt-free fun we've ever seen... d'you seriously mean that noone will be able to persue Autralians for debts incurred on overseas-hosts sites?
Brrring it owwwwnnnnnnnnn!
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
I hope so. I have to admit that it pleases me in some peverse but satisfying way to savour society tying itself in knots trying to figure how to cope with the information revolution (I bet I'm the only one here who still uses that term) and the exponential growth and dominance of concepts that it grasps, as a whole, on the level of a learning-challenged 2 year old.
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
In Australia, gambling is controlled by the various state governments, who receive a significant fraction of their tax revenue from it - I think the figure in my home state is approximately 10% of state tax collected - that's about 170 AUD (85 USD) per person per year. Faced with the demands of funding stuff while keeping taxes low, raising money by tacitly encouraging gambling by increasing the opportunities to do so has been an easy option. Hence, we have massive mini-casinos full of one-armed bandits scattered throughout our suburbs and towns, horse racing, which you can bet on by phone or in virtually every pub in Australia, and massive casinos in all our major cities, which get most of their revenue from locals rather than tourists.
The federal government, however, has the power to regulate telecommunications, so internet gambling is in their bailiwick. As regular /. readers will know, the current federal government is run by a bunch of wowsers (they brought in the net censorship regs, for instance, and have tried to stack the film classification board with fundamentalist nutballs), and so it's unsurprising that they have tried this ban. If the federal government is being hypocritical, it is doing so only in that states who fund a significant part of their budgets from gambling taxes aren't going to be quite so dependent on the federal government for funds.
About the only surprise is that they have done so in such a clueful way - this stands a chance of actually working.
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
Anyone actually from there know if that's all over IL, or just downtown Chi?
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Everybody's commenting on the basic idea of moving (or e-faking such a move) to Australia and running up a huge gambling debt that you needn't then pay.
What, then, if you actually won anything? Since you're an Aussie, and such gambling was not allowed, would the casinos be forced to pay you? I'd think not.
The net effect is that you'd just be killing time if you tried this. If you can't actually win, and are not required to pay if you lose, why play at all?
Lemon curry?
First off, this is not as simple as saying 'they can all welch on their debts'. They can't. Here's why.
First, we have to assume that payment was made to the casino/sportsbook via credit card (because if it was a cash or wire transfer, there would be nothing to refute, it'd be a done deal, right?)
Online gambling operations, at least, the successful ones, firstly, have fairly low credit card limits. You'd be surprised how low. You can only put so much a day and a month into the account.
Rule #1 with Visa (for example, insert other card names as you wish) is that, if you authorized the transaction, then the transaction goes through. You cannot later refute it saying 'I changed my mind'.
Now, you COULD point out that, as gambling is illegal, Visa lending you money for gambling (presuming they knew the merchant was a gambling operation) might be determined illegal, and you might get off on the debt (and lose your credit card, and credit rating, of course). This is what happened in California that one time; some lady had her $50,000 debt to Visa overturned because lending money for gambling is illegal in California, and Visa knew what the merchant was doing.
3) By trying to cancel your bet, you are also presumably admitting to illegally gambling. I don't know what penalties are for this, if any, but...
4) Most online gamblers, the ones the online shops like, are addicts. If you mess over the sportsbook you are betting at by welching on your bet, do you think you will be allowed to bet there again? Do you think they won't share your name and info with other operations? Where are you gonna get your fix? The truth is, many people WILL pay up, though I'm sure some guy who first-times it in and blows his life savings will use this as a loophole and get away with it.
This is where Vegas is gonna lose out, and where North America (and many other states) are missing out.
1) Don't tax the people, tax the casinos. But that doesn't work if you forbid online casinos from operating in your country.
The problem is that online casinos need basically the same license as a meatspace casino to operate, and jurisdictions are not going to let it happen. THey don't realize that the laws are antiquated.
A casino/sportsbook that operates online is just as accessible to americans if the servers are in Antigua as it is if they are in Vegas, or California. IT makes absolutely NO difference as to who can gamble there. The only difference is that, if you chase the business offshore, you lose out on taxing the business, on on the jobs it would create.
Taxing people is a different matter; I'm happy I'm Canadian, and gambling winnings are not taxable. Not lotteries, not casinos, trips to vegas, whatever... not taxable.
No, actually $ is used by Austrlia, Singapore, Canada, just off the top of my head. So running an aussie publication and saying '$' would imply it was australian dollars, quite a difference from US$.
Just as the Pound symbol is used by the UK and Ireland (and no, they aren't the same thing)
Don't assume that because it's 'offshore' that it's 'shady', the two are mutually exclusive. Scams happen on and offshore.
Besides, what's 'offshore' to you might be 'onshore' to a lot of other people.
The sites that run gambling transactions tend to license the software from one of the 2 or 3 main developers of gambling software. These developers, most of them, also run the transaction servers themselves (those running the casinos often don't; they just run websites/do marketing).
Trust of the gaming system is an obvious question... so what do they do? Independent audits. You can look at profit margins, randomly test the games, lots of things to see that these casinos are operating according to the book. Folks, they can't afford not to. The margins for a small online casino are small; one or two people running it will make an okay living off it, a few grand profit a month, but that's it. If the word gets out, even once, that your games are rigged, hello lawsuit, goodbye ALL customers. It just doesn't really happen.
Also... a very large part of online gambling is the ever popular sportsbook... it's a little harder to cheat at that...basically impossible.
Basically, you dno't gambe at some little online casino nobody has ever heard of.. you check out who they are, where they are, what systems they use, and who audits them.
You are correct; that's exactly what the casinos will do if this happens. They will refuse to take payment directly from Australian credit cards.
Payment is also accepted in many other forms, including paypal & western union, and bank wire. These will be more difficult to stop.
This will simply be a waste of time for all involved, and won't really stop online gambling at all.
A quick google search for 'what is the origin of the dollar sign' turned upb ol s/dollarsign
http://130.88.203.73/asktheexperts/faq/aboutsym
What is the origin of the dollar sign ($)?
There have been several theories to account for the symbol $, which was in use long before the introduction of the American currency. Most probably it was an adaptation of the figure `8', representing the Spanish `piece of eight' or eight-real coin.
The name `dollar', however, derives from the Dutch or Low German word daler (in German taler or thaler) - originally Joachimstaler, referring to a coin from the silver mines of Joachimstal, in Bohemia (now Jáchymov in the Czech Republic), which opened in 1516.
Or.. From another site.......
Information on the origin of the symbol for the dollar.
As it turns out, the symbol ($) comes from Spain. the II upon the S
represented the Pillars of Hercules, upon which rests the Spanish
coat of arms. The S came about from the plural for Dollars or Pesos.
In Spanish 1 Dolar, 2 Dolares, 1 Peso, 2 Pesos etc. hence the S. To
identify the United States dollar from all other dollars the S was
superimposed with a U. Hence a US Dollar. In time, people not
understanding the origin and / or due to unclear hand writing, the U
was replaced with II. More time elapsed and to speed up the writing
process, the II became a single I as in $. Now that the $ is
built into virtually all computers, the evolution will probably
stop.
As for how the US came about acquiring the denomination, the
Spanish Embassy in Washington said that when the War of
Independence began, they soon realised how they needed to mint
money which would be recognised as legal tender by the US' allies.
France was approached and asked for permission to base the US
currency on the French 'Livres'. France said no. Then the US' other
ally, Spain, was approached. The Spanish Cortes (Parliament) decided
they would allow the US to base their national currency on the
Spanish Silver Dollar (Dolar de Plata), already in circulation in many
Southern States. However, it appears that the Spanish term 'Dolar'
was derived from the word 'dollar'. So the word itself comes from
somewhere else. The origin of the word 'dollar' is often attributed to
the Bohemian 'taler' (short for joachimstaler from Sankt Joachimsthal
where talers were first made). The Spanish Silver Dollar ('piece of
eight') was patterned after the taler. So I guess we owe Spain and
Bohemia our monetary units. I hope you find this topic as interesting
as I do.
... apart from the horse racing, the pokies, the cricket matches, the .... etc, etc ...
There's already a sizeable grey economy despite the red tape of the Grab Snatch and Take (GST) tax. The average Australian doesn't take much notice of what goes on in Canberra and I seriously doubt whether a fiat dictate on internet gambling is going to make much of an impact. Gambling is really a stupidity tax on people who can't do maths so I suspect this latest triump of parliamentary wisdom is really due to the politicians hating competition.
LL
As the world currently stands you can gamble on your credit card and if you lose you can simply dispute the charges and you're fine. As far as the credit card companies are concerned, no signature, no deal, the merchant (casino) is screwed. The credit card companies have basically behaved how you'd expect, no real innovation, no real proactive movements to securing things from start to finish (ie decent PKI smart cards at a reasonable price). The merchants wear it directly, but the legitimate consumers are wearing it to cover the high fraud rate.
Fortunately capitalism is beginning to scare them. The merchants are pissed off at the enormous chargeback ratio and are looking elsewhere. These days everyone wants to acquire transactions. Mobile phone companies want you to buy cans of coke with your phone etc. etc. etc.
The credit card companies have done as little as possible. Personally I'd like to see them screwed, but I'm pretty sure they'll manage to ride in on the hard work a lot of other people have put in and save their unimaginative arses.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Then the overseas site doesn't need to be able to enforce debt collection.
Buy tokens. Play with tokens. Big Deal.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Does this mean I can't trade the NASDAQ any more??!!
He goes mwrokk*squish*
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
You also need legislation telling what you're allowed to read, what you should eat, how much youre allowed to spend, and you need to get permission to have sex too. These are all activites that stupid people make bad choices at, and you obviosly need to control this.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
For god's sake, won't *somebody* think of the children!
.au , lottery draws on the TV 3 days a week, the TAB has a phone betting service, you can buy scratch and win (lose?) tickets at every newsagent in town, and they've *gasp* banned internet gambling.
..*bZzZzZzT* ,er monitor.. *BzZzZzZzT*, ah, review ... *BZZZZZZZZZT* The internet is good! The internet is good!"
Poor little helpless souls, just think of the extra money a family could spend on their children , if only online gambling was banned FOREVER!
Oh wait.
There's poker machines and keno in just about every pub in
Hypocritical bastard politicians - more concerned about the tax drain and Big Business than people's quality of life.
Most aussies would prefer to head off down to the track, or the pub, or the TAB and socialise whilst blowing the family life savings.
Just another thing that makes me wish that shock collars could be fitted to all politicians.
Hey, maybe we could activate them via the internet? It'd be great!
Politician on TV - "I think the internet is evil and we should censor
A man can dream, can't he?
** Windows has detected a mouse movement.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
The deal, made on the day before Federal Parliament goes into winter recess, means that in six months' time interactive gambling operators will not be able to enforce debts owed by Australians gambling on their sites."
Most gambling enterprises do not require a right of enforcement. They obtain a transfer of funds in the amount of the wager before the bet has been taken. Then, they "enforce" the debts themselves -- by moving funds in an offshore account they control, governed by foreign laws.
All the law will accomplish is to deny Australians gambling credit. Of course, even there, it is difficult to distinguish gambling credit from plain credit, when the loan is obtained independently from the wager -- thus, either the law will be ineffective, or the law will operate to make any credit to Australian nationals more risky.
And assuming that no java applets are involved?
Then again, with the preponderance of shitty sites that require javascript for all kinds of stupid reasons, plus needless use of frames, you might be out of luck anyway... I have a special silver sledgehammer waiting for me in heaven to pound those programmers responsible back into limbo every time they crawl out.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Any corporation would be stupid not to implement some kind of proprietry regime in which to protect their investment, why should a government be any different? Gambling is a multi-billion dollar tax generator for the Government, and it's in their interests (and mine) to deter the bulk of Australian gamblers from getting online. Gamblers will go to where the best odds are, and my betting dollar says that won't be in .au. I don't gamble, but the money gamblers generate in tax needs to stay here in Australia, not to the hundreds of .au tax free casinos in America.
Of course it's a pointless exercise. We know that - Alston knows it - but it delays the erosion of revenue until hopefully somebody figures out an even more difficult obstacle to place in the path of Aussie wannabe Internet gamblers.
Instantly setting up a host of sites designed to obfuscate where the gambler actually lives:
1: user@.au "buys" stuff at bogus e-commerce site
2: Account credited to anongambler@domain.!au
3: Gamble it away
4: If balance is postive, credit it back to bogus e-commerce site.
5: If it gts tricky, credit it to a real e-commerce site and get it sent as "gifts".
Does this mean that they will also be stopping online share trading? How many people use e-trading as a "classy" form of gambling because they don't know as much as they think they do.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
s/fosters/bud light/ - that's what aussies think of fosters. Fosters, it's Australian for urine. Here's a tip, when you're bars close at 2am and/or are closed on Sundays, dont go talking about beer like you know something.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"The best cold beer is Vic" werd to that Neal Finn. And just to attract some flames, must say I'm achin' for a XXXX.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Politicians learn their brain damaged ideas from running the student union at university.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Black slavery, indentured servitude, child workers, wage slaves, migrant workers. USians should be the last to bring up history.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The move represents a backflip for the Government, as the Communications Minister, Senator Alston, has previously maintained that the fact gambling sites were overseas would be sufficient deterrent to punters.
..and for extra credit, who in our Australian audience can recall how Alston came to this remarkable conclusion? Anyone? Anyone? Beuler? That's right, he figured ozzies would have to "make a long distance call" to use offshore online casinos. We all knew he'd figure it out eventually, who figured it would take him 12 months?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Just get the money up front. I expect all online casino operators will require this from now on.
There was a case a few years ago where some bitch in California sued her credit card company because she'd run up a massive gambling debt on her card, and wanted to reneg because gambling's illegal here. The shocking thing is, she *won*, and Visa had to eat her gambling debt.
I think the judge should have taken note of her confession to a misdemeanor, and referred her to the D.A.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I live in Tasmania, Australia, and this decision has been in the works for a while.
Australia has lots of legal gambling outlets. Most of them are owned by the same people who own the mass media.
Putting two and two together, I'd be willing to bet that this is not so much an attempt to stop the 'scourge' of net gambling, but to prevent leeching of profits from the casinos.
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Using the holy grail of OSes...
Australian's don't have a right to free speach in the constitution, but from my understanding, and I may be incorrect here, Australian's do have the right to free trade in the constitution. Doesn't telling Australian banks not to honor overseas transactions becuase they come from casinos breach this constitutional right?
Also, if an overseas casino just labels its transactions as from Bob's Fishmarket then how does the bank know, and are they liable under the legislation if they didn't know it was a casino?
One can easily see why most governments would try to outlaw online gaming. Taxes no other reasons why. Online gambling epsecially offshore gambling removes the currency normally given to the state/country. Here in the US well in NY at least we have OTB (Off Track Betting) which is monopolized... errr, controlled by the state, and anything in relation to horse racing passes through there without question, taxes are paid, Uncle S(c)am is happy. Lottery same thing.
Gambling is big business anywhere you go, and unless money is coming back into the state, they'll here none of it. Sort of similar to what the Secret Service did to Gold Age, a raid of their business. Governments despise people not paying money to them, and anyone doing so they're going to make sure they get them. What happened with Gold Age, is simple, no one pays taxes for buying `e-gold` and much can't be done to trace anything.
Big Bro gets pissed, we bitch, a week later another circumvention procedure takes over. Snowball Effects 101
Want Root?
I've got to get myself an aussie mail drop, bank account, and credit card within the next six months.
Unless I misread the compromise, you can collect your winnings but aren't liable for your losses. But there will always be someone who'll take your bets...
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
> And yet insurance is emminently respectable.
Insurance is another ponzi scheme, just like gambling.
If people want to blow/"invest" their money, that's their prerogative, and others should have no right to tell them what they can or can't do with it.
Having worked for an online casino (I know i know... bad me), I can see this legislation hitting them hard (not that i'll be shedding tears for them...)
Australia has one of the biggest gambling populations (percentage and spending wise) around, and a lot of money was spent advertising specifically to them. Note: the kangaroo and koala type ads did not go over well. gee, wonder why.
Now, they'll have to funnel that same money (or even more) into fraud protection and system changes, to keep Australian players out. And they do spend a surprising amount of money trying to prevent players who shouldn't be in the system from getting in (mainly because if those players DO get in, they can't keep the money they lose. It all has to be credited back).
Of course, anyone with a bit of tech savvy can get around these measures, but lets face it.. the majority of these players aren't the brightest. Otherwise, they wouldn't be spending huge amounts at online casinos in the first place.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
In the UK, gambling debts cannot be enforced in court - gambling is legally a "gentlemens agreement", and so neither side can be compelled to pay out.
This doesn't seem to have made much difference in the uptake of gambling of any kind here.
Stateside Fosters, it's Canadian for a joke.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The legislation does not actually ban Australians from gambling through off-shore sites. Under the legislation Australian banks are not allowed to honour credit card debts to off-shore gambling sites. Presumably this is to encourage sites to ban Australian credit card numbers (which I believe are identifiable by the first 5 digits).
Who knows, maybe some entrepeneurial bank from another country will make a fortune supplying international credit cards to Aussie gamblers?
Unfortunately it looks to be a certainty that these stupid laws will pass like others before them, I just hope that one day somebody will be able to remove them.
I'm so finding an internet gambling site...
Buckets,
pompomtom
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
Russell Crowe is a Kiwi. So there.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
...because I hear those cement overshoes can be a bitch to get off. Especially once you've somehow found yourself at the bottom of a river...
;-)
Some of the online casinos are apparently run by some very shady characters. Some are just enterprising businessmen with a sporting bent. But some have friends with accents, da?
If you thought the original Italian mafia was bad, wait until a surly Russian gentleman comes to your door and force-feeds you gallons of borscht until you're begging to pay up...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
I very much doubt that.
and won't really stop online gambling
That's true.
"paypal & western union, and bank wire" generally require you to have the money up front. Credit card gambling allows you to run up masses of debts at casinos that potentially have no regulation.
Stopping people from being able to go home, logon and loose thousands of dollars on their credit card, will have an impact and is certainly not a waste of time.
Gambling is a problem, it is ruining people's lives, and a government has a responsibility to protect people - including protecting them from themselves.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Well, darn. In that case "Note to self: Learn to fight."
It is a rather cunning way to get some degree of self- regulation
If they'd done the same thing for internet porn they'd have won applause.
no freedoms reduced, just making net companies think about the consequences.
Might speed up online currency develoment tho (to get around it)
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
If that were the case, then all Allston has to do is ban us from visiting porn sites and checking out get-rich-quick schemes, and I won't get any spam at all !!!
Sigh. Somehow I don't think so.
Banning companies from pursing debts from Australians seems a much better way of "banning" online gambling as any other way I can think. At least it puts the onus on the websites rather than the government being forced to go after each person. Of course the way round it is for for the website operator to require a downpayment before gambling occurs, up to the maximum loss possible.
Isn't the business of determining reciprocity of payment clearing subject to treaty and not unilateral legislation? In other words, the U.S. may pass laws saying certain kinds of foreign contracts are illegal, but if these contracts are subject to treaty, those laws are automatically voided by the superior law of the treaty?
Dog is my co-pilot.
HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA you British are all the Same. You use us as human sheilds and when we prove ourselves time and time again you just bitch about us Anonymously. As The French in Monty Python Say "you silly English k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt!"
Dont get me wrong most pommies i havent got a problem with, but as with ALL races on this world there are a few idiots, guess what, this bloke is one of them. and please i really dont need to hear about your sheep fantasies.
As to what we are called, well im guess that due to your post you arnt, so to speak, as sharp as a knife, so i will enlighten you. We are called Australians, now i know thats hard to understand, out you'll come to understand it eventually.
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"Passion Rules Reason." Blood of the Fold
get over yourself, the whole fucking world doesn't begin and end in america
So there's no need to prohibit Australians from visiting online casinos overseas, because online casinos overseas will simply refuse to do business with them. You have an Australian credit card number? Sorry, that card isn't accepted here.
the first piece of Australian internet legislation that can probably be enforced.
why this has happened:
as well as obvious tax controls, Australia has recently been having issues with "problem gamblers", otherwise known as gambling addicts.
online gambling has created a huge difficulty in trying to control problem gambling. if someone can't gamble at the casino or the tab or somewhere else because they are a known problem gambler, they could just go home and gamble online.
a gambling addiction is a very dangerous thing, it directly affects the lives of those around you... sometimes family or co-workers wake up to discover someone they trust has gambled away their house.
a communications minister who doesn't "get" the internet...
Good God, Keep these people in office and they will soon make the internet illegal. See the ISP censorship bill.
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Will the last company to abandon Linux please turn off the lights??!
Having worked in the gaming industry, I can only give you a glimpse of the staggering levels of protection offered to consumers by government regulation. It's truly awe-inspiring.
The Australian State of Victoria successfully introduced poker machines in the early 1990's. Probity was of primary concern. Under no circumstances were gaming machines ever to either cheat a player or be capable of allowing the players to cheat.
Any breach of this rule - even accidentally - results in investigation by the Federal police.
As I said a glimpse. The monitoring system is a central host. All machines are connected via TCP/IP. Machines must respond to authentication and checksum validation at any time. Machine logic systems are sealed. Unsealing the system renders the machine unusable until a reset is hand performed by a government auditor with a unique one-time code.
Gaming logic must be able to survive power down, network disconnection, logic unsealing or any combination of these. If a game is in progress when any disabling event occurs, it must resume and play to completion upon system restoration.
Gaming transactions are monitored and validated by the central host. The random #'s are tracked and results compared. Any machine which violates this causality is disabled.
ALL gaming source code is subject to validation by government auditors. Any programmer attempting to incorporate any suspicious code would immediately be prosecuted.
By government decree, all gaming machines must return a minimum of 87% of their intake. Each game must be submitted with a probability analysis and accompanying source code.
Basically, gaming in Victoria is clean.
Now, when you gamble in an online casino, guess what protection you have.
None.
Gambling is stupid anyway, but online casinos can rip you off blind in ways that traditional gambling venues never can. They're uncontrolled, with no requirement for any sort of probity. Don't give me any bullshit about market forces either, it won't wash. Fundamentally, online casinos are crooked and can get away with it because the only way to PROVE they're crooked is to take massive samples of the games to prove the percentages don't add up.
Here's an example. User spins up a $1,000,000 win on an online game. Gaming program decides that's a bad thing and alters it to a $500 win. Or nothing. Basically online casinos offer ZERO protection to the consumer and should be stamped out. If you HAVE to have gambling, then at least gambling regulated by government decree lets the consumer know what they're getting into. Online casinos are a scam just like any "make-money-fast" pyramid scheme.
In this context, the legislation is not only desirable but quite clever. It puts the onus for blocking Australian gamblers upon the casino itself and you can be sure their desire to protect their revenue flow will radically exceed any measures that the government could ever install.
Yeah, sure you could use overseas accounts or any other means to circumvent the legislation but by that time the legislation's already achieved it's purpose. To prevent online gambling from becoming an impulse purchase. If you have to actually go to any trouble to gamble, chances are you're going to forget it.
Please forgive the double post. I meant to reply to the main article but screwed up.
Having worked in the gaming industry, I can only give you a glimpse of the staggering levels of protection offered to consumers by government regulation. It's truly awe-inspiring.
The Australian State of Victoria successfully introduced poker machines in the early 1990's. Probity was of primary concern. Under no circumstances were gaming machines ever to either cheat a player or be capable of allowing the players to cheat.
Any breach of this rule - even accidentally - results in investigation by the Federal police.
As I said a glimpse. The monitoring system is a central host. All machines are connected via TCP/IP. Machines must respond to authentication and checksum validation at any time. Machine logic systems are sealed. Unsealing the system renders the machine unusable until a reset is hand performed by a government auditor with a unique one-time code.
Gaming logic must be able to survive power down, network disconnection, logic unsealing or any combination of these. If a game is in progress when any disabling event occurs, it must resume and play to completion upon system restoration.
Gaming transactions are monitored and validated by the central host. The random #'s are tracked and results compared. Any machine which violates this causality is disabled.
ALL gaming source code is subject to validation by government auditors. Any programmer attempting to incorporate any suspicious code would immediately be prosecuted.
By government decree, all gaming machines must return a minimum of 87% of their intake. Each game must be submitted with a probability analysis and accompanying source code.
Basically, gaming in Victoria is clean.
Now, when you gamble in an online casino, guess what protection you have.
None.
Gambling is stupid anyway, but online casinos can rip you off blind in ways that traditional gambling venues never can. They're uncontrolled, with no requirement for any sort of probity. Don't give me any bullshit about market forces either, it won't wash. Fundamentally, online casinos are crooked and can get away with it because the only way to PROVE they're crooked is to take massive samples of the games to prove the percentages don't add up.
Here's an example. User spins up a $1,000,000 win on an online game. Gaming program decides that's a bad thing and alters it to a $500 win. Or nothing. Basically online casinos offer ZERO protection to the consumer and should be stamped out. If you HAVE to have gambling, then at least gambling regulated by government decree lets the consumer know what they're getting into. Online casinos are a scam just like any "make-money-fast" pyramid scheme.
In this context, the legislation is not only desirable but quite clever. It puts the onus for blocking Australian gamblers upon the casino itself and you can be sure their desire to protect their revenue flow will radically exceed any measures that the government could ever install.
Yeah, sure you could use overseas accounts or any other means to circumvent the legislation but by that time the legislation's already achieved it's purpose. To prevent online gambling from becoming an impulse purchase. If you have to actually go to any trouble to gamble, chances are you're going to forget it.
Or they could try what the UK goverment is trying: to tax at 0% online gambling, that way the industry does not move away from the country to fiscal heavens.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
how do countries enforce internet crimes like this on an individual basis? there are already enough problems with international law and tourists... isn't going to a site from a different country just like tourism?
whatever
In other news, ingenious Australian law makers have banned drug dealers from collecting drug related credit card debts. Government predicts Australia's illicit drug trade to be halted immediately.
Sweet lord give me patience.
(I'm an Australian btw and I pray daily for Senator Alston's inevitable Darwin Award style exit from this life that will free us from the constant assault of his stupidity.)
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
The real reason why Au has banned gambling is quite evident: it takes away from profitable state and private run gambling. It means someone has their hands in money and is protecting the resources for someone else. I don't know the names involved. But I do know that's horrendous.
Solution: Some media person, some individual, anyone, should be as forthright as we are on slashdot. For instance, if a politician was asked why he supported this bill, he would say:
"Well, to keep our children safe, to stop the slaughter of innocents, to protect those who wouldn't know better..."
Now, that's a ruse. You know it. I know it. All someone has to say is: "Hey, you're not my babysitter, leave me alone!" Governments are instituted among men not to protect a man from himself, but to protect a man from his neighbors, who may use physical force in relationships. The goverment, then, is the only legal use of physical force, and can only use it in retaliation. There's no reason, nor right, that government should be restricting individuals from engaging in free trade, even if it's stupid in your eyes.
By exposing the motive behind the laws (which is money in someone's pocket, not 'protection for te people') , these politicians couldn't worm their way out of anything.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Action sequence: man sitting at computer, frowning. Monitor faced away from camera. long silence... Narrator: "Poor" fosters, Australian for beer!
*lol* get a ssh account on an overseas server, connect, use lynx...
-==-
We are Microsoft. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
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I may be being a bit dim here, but you don't get 'debt' transactions from casinos, or casino sites for that matter.
You go on, you put 50 quid in your account. You bet 50 quid. If you lose, you now have 0 in your account. If you win, you have 50+x in your account. You can then draw out this money.
Anyone?
The future prosperity of industrial economies depends on Info Tech and Networking/Communications infrastructure.
So "unknown IOC official" Jackboot Johnny puts Alston in the position of telecommunications minister, presumably to get the Grey Vote from those poor stupid (pre?) baby boomers who are afraid that computers will take over the world (ala Arnie coming back to kill Sarah Connor).
Young Australians need to TAKE HOLD OF THEIR FUTURE NOW before the current crop of geriatric assholes run our economy into the ground.
>>
I am the director, and this is my movie
I agree with Australia's decision. I think a lot of people have a backwards understanding of contracts and personal freedoms. A contract may be an agreement between two parties, but a legally enforceable contract is an agreement between three at least and one of them is always the government (meaning us)! When you say a contract is legally enforceable, that means the rest of society is willing to force each of the parties to abide by the terms of the contract. There are LOTS of contract that aren't legally enforceable and shouldn't be, contracts with minors, contracts that involve crime (for example a hit man can't sue his employers for non payment), and contracts involving the sale or slavery of humans! Consider the case of online gambling. Australia has not enforcement power over these online casinos. They don't know if they are crooked or anything about them at all and have no power to fix any problems. OK, fine you say, so let the buyer beware. Right, I agree with this, but it becomes a two way street. In the same way that these entities are beyond the power of the Australian government, the Australian government will simply refuse to enforce any debt these groups claim to be owed! In other words this Australian government is simply say that these casinos are beyond all possible regulation in all ways. It is a plain case of let the buyer beware, for both parties (anarchy is never pretty). If the casinos wish to do business in a country and have the country enforce debts owed them, it is fair to expect them to allow regulation by the country.