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."

Comments

Ok, here's how it works...

[newt]

Here's how the legislation works:

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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Re:Ok, here's how it works...

[decefett]

How right your are, where's a mod point when you need one.

As an Australian I think this is about the only decent internet regulation in .au so far. Why? because gambling and loteries are (as someones sig puts it) it "a tax on stupidity". Allowing gambling online is essentially like allowing people to pay taxes to other countries, when there still at home.

The main reason gambling is so prevelant is because governments too scared to raise regular taxes, they are not however too scared to intruduce new forms of heavily taxed gambling. Of course they only see the revenue that gambling brings in not the welfare/bankruptcy/crime costs that go along with it.

Just my 2 .au cents (1 US cent).

Why it won't help.l

[mindstrm]

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.

Bzzt...where did you hear that?

[mindstrm]

A quick google search for 'what is the origin of the dollar sign' turned up
http://130.88.203.73/asktheexperts/faq/aboutsymb ol s/dollarsign

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.

If the gambler pays up front

[Chuck Chunder]

Then the overseas site doesn't need to be able to enforce debt collection.

Buy tokens. Play with tokens. Big Deal.

Yes, great idea.

[Unknown Poltroon]

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.

won't somebody think of the CHILDREN!

[ColaMan]

For god's sake, won't *somebody* think of the children!

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 .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.

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 ..*bZzZzZzT* ,er monitor.. *BzZzZzZzT*, ah, review ... *BZZZZZZZZZT* The internet is good! The internet is good!"

A man can dream, can't he?


** Windows has detected a mouse movement.

Setting up a new industry overnight...

[xixax]

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.

Alston

[QuantumG]

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?

I can't say I'm particularly suprised...

[base2_celtic]

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.

---

IOU

[joq]

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

Re:IOU

[Marcus Brody]

Its interesting to see the difference in response between the Ossie and UK governments in response to online gambling. Australia, worried about losing tax revenue, have decided to outlaw it.

In contrast, the British government removed all gambling taxes during the last budget. This may seem a little strange, but there is some logic to it. Basically, the UK has a large gambling industry which generates alot of revenue both internally and from abroad. Online gambling was posing a huge threat to this industry. Some of the big players in gambling were threatining to move to offshore tax havens. Therefore: remove the taxes and keep the industry - and along with it keep the jobs and the taxes earned on corporate profits, wages etc.

note to self

[OO7david]

move to Australia, work up huge debt online gambling, get off scot free

...six months' time interactive gambling operators will not be able to enforce debts owed by Australians gambling on their sites.

does this mean

[slaida1]

..that they can't download Windows Server Updates anymore?

fosters

[Tregod]

Action sequence: man sitting at computer, frowning. Monitor faced away from camera. long silence... Narrator: "Poor" fosters, Australian for beer!