Australia thinking of legalizing Online Poker
by fsbo
Back in 2006 the US government has proclaimed act banning online companies and the services they provide and nowadays most of the planned events are looking at that legislative stone to regulate their own situations. The same situation with online gambling ban faces Australia with its gambling law from 2001. Online companies cannot offer gambling for real money, though hundreds of online companies continue to provide gambling services for millions of online gamblers.
Australian Productivity Commission has given the law another thought and recommends that online gambling should be legalized with corresponding tax obligation. The 1999 inquiry has been updated and new draft is being analyzed at the moment. The main issue that they face at the moment is that Poker constitutes only 4% of all gambling and there should be a way of controlling al the gambling facilities online.
The draft is expected to be completed and brought for the signature by the end of February 2010. Before handing over the paper with updated Act the Commission will once again gather all the information with feedback and numbers to make sure that there is no mistake and that most part of all the interested people agrees with it.
The situation will most probably be similar to the Italian solution where the government forced all world gambling companies to obtain corresponding domen name to be valid on the territory of the country. A bright example can be Party Poker, which obtained domen name in the “.it” zone. In this case the Poker giant doesn’t have to buy an office in Italy to legalize its services.
November 12th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Okay, the USA banned online gambling some time ago. The problem with online gambling is that the money can’t be tracked. I have clients who have established offshore asset protection accounts, some of them have gambling backgrounds, but they would be the first to admit that being involved with online gambling can get a person washed up. Although, perhaps if the Australian government controls it, it could be legit and not cause legal problems for those gambling and those administering for the government. Unlikely, and the Australian government should consider all negative possibilities before trying this out.