Australia

Online lotteries and the sale of lottery tickets over the Internet, as well as sports wagering and race wagering, are viewed as extensions of land-based offerings and are licensed and regulated by the individual states and territories of Australia. Wagering on a sport, race, or other event after it has already begun is not permitted, nor are keno-style games, scratch tickets, or instant lotteries.

Most Australian states and territories have licensing regimes for sports wagering and lotteries, but many of them permit only the state-authorized totalizator to offer sports betting. Tasmania licenses peer-to-peer betting exchanges.

Talks in 2010 about implementing a censorship plan in Australia would affect whether Australian residents would have access to online gambling sites not licensed in the country.

In October 2009, an independent advisory body on gambling policy recommended that Australia lift its eight-year-old ban on online gambling. The Productivity Commission recommended that the government repeal the 2001 IGA to allow operators to offer poker and casino products to residents. The repeal was rejected because no evidence supported the argument that the benefits of liberalizing online gaming outweighed the risks of an increase in problem gambling.

Another attempt to regulate online gambling was underway in early 2011 with researchers at Southern Cross University in New South Wales conducting a survey with the objective of understanding gambling behavior in Australia.