PokerStars Gearing Up to Quit Australia

In March, the Australian Senate passed a bill banning offshore online gambling operators from offering their products to Australian based customers, but the House subsequently delayed voting on the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill (2016) as it had more pressing matters to attend. With the House now coming off its break, the piece of legislation is expected to soon pass, meaning by mid-June the bill is likely to have made it into law.
Against this backdrop, whilst other major operators have already chosen to quit the lucrative Australian market, including 888Poker and 32Red, the world’s biggest online poker site, PokerStars is gearing up to follow suit, and as the firm’s CFO, Daniel Sebag, explains:
“If the current proposed legislation is enacted in Australia, we intend to block players in that market. We currently estimate that the proposed legislation could be considered in late May, and we would block players in that market approximately 30 days thereafter.
The news will come as a major blow to the country’s legion of online poker players, as well as such top professionals as Jonathan Karamalikis, Matthew Wakeman, and Jackie Glazier. As well as representing Australia’s own version of Black-Friday, there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel, either, as the new law states that international operators will need to obtain a license in order to offer their products, but there is no place where operators can actually go to apply for such licenses. In the meantime, PokerStars is currently servicing Australian players using an Isle of Man worldwide gaming license.
While the country’s poker players will soon be cut off from the online poker market, Australia continues to have the highest rate of gambling losses of any country, with an average of $990 in losses per person. From these losses, around half was spent on video poker machines, known as pokies.