A couple of years ago the UK Gambling Commission introduced legislation that forced online gambling companies operating in the UK to obtain a license. Even if your HQ was based outside the United Kingdom, if you were going to accept online gamblers from the UK, you had to apply for a license. Most bitcoin casinos, poker rooms and bookmakers did not apply for the license since they try to retain their players anonymity by asking for as little personal information as possible. This led to UKGC issuing legal threats to many of the biggest bitcoin betting operators. While most bitcoin gambling sites continue to operate in the UK today, some big name like Nitrogen Sports did pull out and no longer accept players with UK IP addresses. Australia now plans to follow the UK's lead and force any gambling operator that is active within the country to acquire a license from the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Failure to do so could result in fines of up to €1 million per day for any company that accepts bets from Aussie punters. While this will have little impact on major players like Bet365, 888 or PartyPoker who will be able to meet the licensing requirements, most bitcoin sportsbooks, poker rooms and casinos will probably not qualify. It remains to be seen whether gambling sites that accept bitcoin will simply ignore the new Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016 or whether they will block gamblers trying to access their websites from within Australia.
Australia is also in the process of banning in-play sports betting and online poker. 888poker have left the Australian poker market and it's expected that PokerStars and Full Tilt will do the same. If you Google the The Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016 you will find out more.
The Australian government are fighting a losing battle. Populations of 1st world countries are getting increasingly technically competent. Telling people that they can no longer play poker online no longer works. They will simply use a VPN to get around any IP blocks and use crypto currencies to gamble online.
As we predicted, the Australian governments war on gambling is pointless because it will attract bitcoin gambling operators who don't care about their stupid regulations. This has already started to happen as Ignition Casino & Poker have announced that they are launching in Australia. Up until now, Ignition only accepted real money gamblers from the United States but they have added Australia also because they expect that poker rooms like PokerStars, PartyPoker and 888poker will be forced out of the Australian poker market. Ignition bought the Bovada poker network so they are the biggest U.S. facing poker room and casino. They allow their players to withdraw or deposit with BTC but they also accept conventional cashier options.
PokerStars have now announced that they will no longer be operating in Australia. This is further good news for crypto currency poker operators.
the australian government are being very poorly advised. all they need to do is look at the united states to see how well prohibition of online poker has worked there. cash strapped states are missing out on hundreds of millions of lost tax dollars each year because united states citizens are playing at offshore poker rooms. the same will happen in australia now that pokerstars has exited.
The Australian government is now blocking bitcoin sportsbook websites so Aussie's may need to use a VPN to get around the restriction.
Even BetOnline have now left Australia which is pretty surprising given that they are an offshore gambling operator that normally doesn't care about poker regulations in particular countries. They are still offering online poker to US players. Here is a list of the top 3 crypto poker rooms currently still operating in Australia https://www.bitcoingambling.io/top-australian-cryptocurrency-poker-rooms.html
There are no Australia-based online poker rooms operating but if you are an Australian resident, you can still play real money poker at these poker rooms https://www.bitcoingambling.io/crypto-guides-help-section/is-crypto-gambling-legal-in-australia