Online Betting Poker Australia

CANBERRA - Australia's federal parliament just closed loopholes to ban online poker under changes to gambling laws passed by the Senate on Tuesday which also outlaw in-play sports betting. Online poker sites in Australia and across the globe have exploded in the last 20 years. Aussie players can enjoy various tournaments and top-rated online poker rooms. Even better, this can be done through a mobile device. If you’re looking to play online poker in Australia, real money can be made. All you need is a smart strategy and some.

1. Sports Betting In Australia
2. Online Betting Australia
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4. Online Betting Poker Australia Free

Is Poker Legal in Australia?

BetOnline's 25 Days of Poker brings you poker challenges that unlock access to $25,000 in daily Instant All-In Freerolls and $25,000 in guaranteed Main Event tournaments. Complete multiple missions and play for bigger cash prizes on December 27 th! It’s the Interactive Gambling Act that makes it illegal for real money online poker to be offered or promoted within Australia. So, while gamers can participate in poker with demo money, it’s not something that can be played any other way by residents within Australia. This means that real money poker is particularly off-limits. Poker machines, including online, comprise a majority of 56.7% of all the dollars gambled in Australia – easily more than double all forms of betting at 20.7% including sports betting (5.2%) and horse racing, harness racing and greyhounds (15.5%) of the overall gambling pie.

Online poker is legal in Australia for some online poker operators. Until 2001 there wasn’t a lot of restrictions on online poker or any other type of online gambling for that matter. However, in 2001, the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 was introduced. Known more commonly now as the IGA, this complete piece of legislation made it illegal for any online casino or online poker sites not located within Australia to offer games to Australian residents.

That means that poker sites, not players, that are located outside of Australia aren’t supposed to allow any Australian poker players at their sites but, they do. In addition to that bit of legislation, the IGA also prevented new sites from obtaining licences to operate from within Australia. Lassetters was at the time the only legally operating casino in Australia so that Australian poker site and / or Australian casino was permitted to legally continue to operate, giving them a monopoly over Australian gambling revenue with the exception of sports betting.

Sports betting is still allowed regardless of where the betting operation is located.

Australians aren’t prohibited from playing at Mainstream Poker Sites

The thing about the IGA in Australia though is that it doesn’t change the law for players. There are no provisions for being the bettor and actually playing poker online. It’s a law that affects the poker sites, making it illegal for them to allow Australians to visit their sites, not making it illegal for Australians to actually log on and play.

How is Poker Taxed in Australia?

In Australia poker winnings are not taxed. They fall under the category of gambling profits and are therefore tax free. Imagine the enormous amounts of income some Australian poker players are bringing in, completely tax free.

Of course we can’t all be like Joe Hachem, the current #1 Australian cashing poker player ever who resides in Melbourne, Australia. Poker millionaire Joe Hachem, also known as Hash, took 1st place at the WSOP Main Event in 2005 winning a record breaking $7.5million and has total winnings to date of $11,707,569.

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If poker isn’t a business in Australia, expenses aren’t deductible.

The downside of this though is that playing poker at online poker sites is not commonly considered a business and therefore expenses incurred while traveling for business, buying tracking software etc. are not automatically tax deductible for most pro and semi-pro poker players.

There have been private rulings on the matter however wherein a players poker earnings were considered a business after the player produced records proving businesslike tracking and accounting systems, profit and loss charts, excel sheets, poker tracking software and all of the other things that really do turn poker into a business rather than a hobby.

Online Betting Australia

Poker Popularity in Australia

Any one in any country that has ever watched a World Series of Poker Main event that included an Australian finishing deep knows that Australian, or shall we say ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie’ poker players are popular among Australians, the question is though, how popular is poker in Australia?

Well, according to MarketWatch ‘IBIS World reports that the gambling market is projected to grow by 3.3% this year’. The industry will earn around $22.5 billion in revenue. I spelled that out for you so you wouldn’t have to count zeros, it is BILLION. A projected 60.2% of betting revenue is said to be poker revenue.

Based on those numbers, I’d say poker is a pretty popular game amongst Aussies.

Safety and Security on Australian Poker Sites

Keeping in mind that only one Australian poker site is licenced and legally operating within Australia it follows that most Australian based poker sites, if they even exist, are not being regulated by the Government in Australia, right?

With that in mind, the safe bet is going to be to play at poker sites that accept Australian poker players that are large, well known and publicly traded. Sites that have been around since dirt was invented, have a reputation for honesty and secure transactions. Australian poker players want to play at sites that offer them the most security; sites with land-based shops are a good bet.

Preferred Currencies for Australian Poker Players

The most obvious choice for Australian players is the AUD, which unfortunately is not the norm at most poker sites. Although playing in your own currency would surely make calculating bets at the table a whole lot easier, it’s surprising how quickly you become adept at converting from $US which is the default currency at most poker sites.

Australian online poker players, welcome to the hell we have had to deal with in the United States. On Tuesday, the Australian Senate passed the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016, effectively eliminating online poker from the country’s entertainment landscape.

The bill was introduced in November by Australia’s Minister for Human Services Alan Tudge mainly as a way to shore up Australia’s sports betting laws. Sports betting – online and otherwise – has been permitted in the country, but there were severe restrictions on “in-play” sports betting, which is what it sounds like: bets placed on sports contests while those contests are being played. In-play sports betting was allowed, but only via telephone, not online.

With the advent of smartphones, though, offshore operators introduced apps to allow players to place in-game sports bets. They were able to get away with this because they had found a loophole that owed its existence to the law’s vagaries. Smartphones are phones, so in-play bets made with the devices are being placed with phones. Clearly, this is not the intent of the law, but operators still got away with it.

So, that loophole was tightened up, but along with it, other forms of internet gambling were killed. The Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016 bans all forms of online gambling that are not explicitly legal in Australia. Only sports betting is explicitly legal, so poker is now illegal by default.

It is widely believed that it is now just a matter of time before most online poker operators exit the Australian market, a significant one in the industry. Vera&John – a bingo site – was the first operator to ditch Australia in anticipation of the bill back in December. 888pokerfollowed suit in January.

Back in November, Amaya CFO Daniel Sebag said in an earnings call that PokerStars would probably get out of Dodge, too.

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“In Australia, we currently offer poker and are reviewing the applicability of proposed legislation to player versus player games of skill,” he said. “At this time, it would appear likely that if the legislation passes, we would block players from Australia. As we do not offer casino sportsbook in Australia, it currently contributes to about 2.5% of our revenues and we estimate it could reduce our EBITDA margin by up to a 150 basis points.”

It is a difficult issue for operators. In some countries, online poker is not explicitly legal, but it isn’t technically illegal, either, so they feel comfortable (or at least not too uncomfortable) offering poker. In Australia, there will be no way to acquire a license, since there is no poker licensing regime, and those who offer poker without a license could face stiff fines.

Online Betting Poker Australia Free

Even if an operator was willing to risk the fines, it will still probably leave. Take PokerStars, for example. PokerStars has been toeing the legal and perception lines very carefully in countries where it wants to operate. Part of this effort to make sure it is a responsible player in other markets. If it continues to offer poker in Australia, it may not be looked at as favorably in countries like the United States where it is still trying to make inroads via licensing and regulation.