Pokerstars to be outlawed to Australian Poker players

The Joint Select Committee inquiry into online gambling has finished it's inquiry and recommended that Australian players be banned from overseas poker sites.

In a somewhat surprising outcome the committee chair Andrew Wilkie has backed the recommendations of the Australian Productivity Commission to allow Australian poker players to play on Australian based sites:

1.51 "In summary, I believe that while the IGA has been effective in limiting the provision of interactive gambling websites by Australian providers, the reality is that Australians continue to gamble on unregulated overseas websites. This exposes Australian consumers to risks. A better, safer alternative would be to allow a well regulated domestic market to operate and provide services to Australians.

1.52 I support the recommendation of the Productivity Commission to allow 'managed liberalisation' of online poker websites. An Australian domestic industry should be developed carefully with effective harm minimisation measures for online play as well as robust consumer protection measures.

1.53 In the model I support, if Australian providers were to be permitted to provide certain forms of online interactive gambling services, I believe that financial transaction barriers on overseas sites should also be put in place. Measures to block payments to overseas websites would be likely to steer most people towards the safer, well-regulated domestic sites. I recognise that such measures are not likely to achieve a total prohibition on Australians' access to overseas gambling websites, but would be likely to dissuade all but the most determined."

Mr Andrew Wilkie MP

Chair






The report is located here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committ...ort/report.pdf

Carbon is base in Australia and they can't play that either. LOL. To bad for them

The problem with the Wilkie / Productivity Commission recommendation is that it seems to be ignoring the biggest barrier to introducing Australian-run poker sites: that our land-based casinos have government-guaranteed monopolies on providing casino games that extend for the next few decades at least, and cover the vast majority of the population...

...which is why I've always thought the IGA was a law that was written never to be enforced. It kept the casinos happy because, to the extent the government was able, it prevented online casino games being offered to Australians, but it was never going to be effective in stopping Australians from playing offshore.

To be fair, Australian players were only ever a drop in the ocean of the big sites' player bases to start with. The downside is that if we're left to play just against ourselves there will be sod-all traffic...

I think the op is just spreading fear! Even this senator doesn't mention PokerStars specifically and reading through the document it seems to me that nothing has changed. A few articles in newspapers and at Poker Asia Pacific have suggested its basically back to the drawing board for these scoundrels trying to ruin poker for Aussies.

http://www.pokerasiapacific.com/join...ling-bill.html

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/aust...-1226218423712

I know there have been a bunch of black eyes for online poker lately but to think that PS isnt safe is kinda ridic, I guess anything can happen though.

Hope all you Aussies can still find a way to get money on and off the bigger sites.

The thing is that Wilke (elected on a problem gambling foundation) is saying that as long as Australian sites conform with the proposed legislation then Aussies will be able to play on Australian based sites including Carbon Poker.

My original thoughts in the headline may be premature as I think that Pokerstars has a .net office/site here in Oz and they may be able to conform to the proposed legislation (ie: protect Australian / rest of the world players money better than those thieving bastards from Full Tilt) and open their .com site here otherwise, Banks / internet payment sites etc will be blocked from depositing to Pokerstars in the same way that funds were blocked to poker players / sites in the USA.

Would online pokersites benefit more by basing their .com sites in a regulated Australian environment rather than in an unregulated tax haven such as the Caman Islands?

Which country's laws would you trust with your poker money?

While that may be so, Stars does have a long track record of falling into line as soon as any jurisdiction makes it clear that online poker isn't welcome - look at the state of Washington. So it's not unreasonable to think that, were a bill of this nature to be passed, Stars would be one of the first sites to close up shop.

And to be fair, these misguided trolls aren't trying to ruin online poker per se. Instead, they're trying to "solve" a broader issue with problem gambling (which I don't believe needs solving in the first place, but that's another issue...) and online poker is just getting caught up in the rush.

Fingers crossed this all gets tied up in red tape until the next election, when all these independent dropkicks are likely to be kicked out of parliament (pretty much none of their constituents expected them to side with Labor after the last election) and government can get back to the important business of leaving gamblers the hell alone

online poker and taxes, those two dont go well together

To borrow a phrase from an infamous former Australian politician... please explain?!?

If it's just youse guys playin with yourselves, Zorba will rule.

Welcome to the club, have a seat.

Sincerely THE USA

Sorry, for you but it's good to know there are bastards everywhere......we do not have a monopoly on em here in the US.

N'yeah... the sucky thing about our position is that it's pretty much all borne out of the brick and mortar casino monopolies.

Online sports betting is 100% legal here - hell, pretty much every sporting broadcast on television cites the online betting odds during the program. It's only poker (and other casino games) that are in a legal grey area.

There is no contention on this point: Australians love to gamble, and our government loves the taxes it gets from the providers who let us do it. Any concessions they make to the anti-gambling wowsers are just tinkering around the edges.