In addition, the commission found that the popularity of poker websites is particularly going through the roof, with a growth rate of 20 percent per year shown: Not a surprise, considering that poker room hosts such as 888.com, Full Tilt and Poker Stars have increased their marketing campaigns in Australia.
Worldwide, a recent report from auditing/accounting services provider KMPG predicted that the global online betting market would grow by 42% to $32 billion by 2012, belying again Australians’ proclivity to gambling is all out of proportion to the country’s size. The study found that approximately 700,000 Australians played some online casino games in 2008, doubling the same statistic from 2004.
Predictions within that assessment also predicted that the Australian gambling industry would double in size from 2008 numbers by 2012, producing a market worth nearly $1.6 billion – a figure which, given current trends, might be considered too low.
That same KPMG report stated that “new laws allowing gaming companies to offer online gambling in Australia are inevitable,” as the federal government will surely realize the great potential for tax revenue collection in casino regulation.
The Productivity Commission report naturally recommended similarly, advising that the government liberalize online gaming and allow Australia-based companies to supply online poker and casino gaming to Australians; online sports betting is already permitted Down Under, after all.
“While illegal and invisible in official records,” reads the report in part, “online gaming appears to have grown very rapidly, and could amount to 4 per cent of gambling expenditure.”
Indeed, Australian newspaper The Age claimed last month that, despite a recorded 17 referrals from in-country authorities to law enforcement since 2001 regarding illegal Australia casinos on the internet, absolutely zero charges have ever been filed against any casino operator. Being found guilty of operating casinos or virtual bingo parlors which accept Australian citizens can carry a fine of $1.1 million per day.
Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has asked the commission for further, more detailed analysis of his citizens’ online gaming habits; this report is due this month. Although this year is an election year in Australia and thus any sort of (seemingly necessarily) controversial legislation such as gambling regulation is unlikely to see passage in 2010.
In direct opposition to any sort of regulated online gambling is Australian senator Nick Xenophon, who has submitted a bill to parliament that, as in America’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, would ban Australian credit card companies from processing payments to suspected offshore gambling websites.
Pro-online gaming advocates may take heart that progress on this issue is being made in Oz, however, and since Rudd seems likely to win reelection, the trend toward regulation and decriminalization of online casino gaming in Australia seems, as KPMG said, “inevitable.”