Australia’s Communications and Media Authority will soon start blocking access to online offshore sports-betting.
Australian punters are currently known to be spending as much as $400m betting offshore each year. That’s been seen to be bad for the country as it takes betting tax away from it.
Worse still, numbers of punters have complained of not being able to get back winnings or deposits from unscrupulous overseas sportsbooks.
The Australian Associated Press reported this week that if enforcement action isn’t possible after investigation, the CMA now has another option. It has the right to order internet providers to block the offending sportsbooks.
Nerida O’Loughlin, Australia’s CMA chairperson said the new laws were a valuable additional weapon against illegal online gambling.
“Before now there was little or no recourse for consumers engaging with these unscrupulous operators,” O’Loughlin said on Monday.
O’Loughlin disclosed that 65 illegal companies had left Australia since the CMA first began taking action. Communications Minister, Paul Fletcher, added that these sites had accounted for about $100m in lost tax revenue each year.
Sign up with FanDuel, a legal sportsbook
“Offshore Sports-Betting defrauding Australians”
“Too often these offshore operators are defrauding Australians and their websites typically provided very few, if any, harm-minimization controls,” Fletcher said.
The US has the most sophisticated and research-orientated IT industry on the planet. If Australia can block out harmful and illegal sports-betting invaders, why not the USA?
If it doesn’t have the legislation to do so, why is this so? And if it does have the necessary legislation, why is it not used?
States like California and Texas both have larger populations than Australia. And unlike Australia, sports betting is still illegal in those states.
At this time less than a quarter of the US’s 50 states have legitimized sports betting. And due to the aged Wire Act, it is illegal for their residents to make online bets across state lines.
Three sports-betting options
What this means is that punters from states like California, Texas and Florida where sports betting is still illegal have only three options.
The first is to cross into the nearest legal betting state and make their wagers there.
The second is to do it with some illegal and often seedy little local bookie at the corner pub.
The third is to seek the online services of illegal offshore sportsbooks in Canada, the Cayman Islands, and elsewhere.
In its first year of sports betting after the repeal of PASPA, New Jersey hauled in some $3 billion in betting handle. And this with a population of only 8.9 million.
Millions flowing out of the US
Try and imagine how much betting money has been flowing out of the country from California with its 39.4m people. And what about Texas (28.7m) and Florida (21.3m).
Try and imagine just how much betting tax is being forfeited. Think about how many schools, roads and parks could have been built if not for this fact.
The mind boggles and once more makes me ask the question: “Why is illegal offshore betting constantly talked about, but nothing is being done about blocking it.”
Let’s be honest about this.
- As long as some states do and some don’t offer sports betting.
- As long as the wire act prohibits inter-state online betting.
- And as long as nothing is done to close down online offshore sports-betting.
Millions of dollars will continue to be drained from the US, and too many punters will be cheated without any recourse.
