Australia mulling net gambling credit card ban

Lawmakers in Australia are moving towards a ban on credit cards for online gambling transactions.

Presently Australians are able to use their credit cards to fund their net betting accounts. While some smaller banks have taken it upon themselves to not allow online gambling transactions the big 4 (NAB, ANZ, CBA & Westpac) who service the vast majority of the Australian adults, do.

But this could soon change.

Federal coalition MP Andrew Wallace has called for an inquiry into the use of credit cards for online gambling. Wallace chairs the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services and his committee will begin an inquiry looking into:

• The adverse effects on the consumers by the use of credit cards for online gambling
• The extent of existing voluntary bans by Australian financial institutions
• Forms of existing consumer protection measures
• Regulatory frameworks in force in other jurisdictions.

The inquiry is accepting submissions from stakeholders until June 25.

If Wallace’s clearly stated opinion on the matter is anything to go by, findings will likely lean toward recommending a ban, meaning a further amendment to the recently passed Interactive Gambling Amendment Act.

The ban will most likely extend to virtual wallet services (PayPal etc) that were included in the UK’s credit card ban which came into effect April last year. Indeed the UK’s position on the matter may well be referenced as a model regulatory framework.

Running in parallel with the inquiry is a separate Senate Committee examination of the merits of a draft bill proposed by independent senator Sterling Griff. Griff’s draft, introduced late last year, is outlined in the Federal Register of Legislation as follows:

The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Prohibition on Credit Card Use) Bill 2020 aims to minimise the scope for problem gambling among Australians betting online by amending the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (the IGA) to implement a ban on the use of credit cards for betting using certain regulated interactive gambling services.

The Senate Committee will report the outcome of their examination to Parliament July 30.

So we have two races currently being run. Both with broadly the same aim; ending Australian’s ability to use their credit cards to fund betting online.

Online poker and casino games (live dealer included) are already banned in Australia so any credit card ban won’t have much of an effect on Australia’s live blackjack activity. It will mainly impact online sports betting companies – subsidiaries of bet365, William Hill, Unibet and GCV Holdings among them.