Australian police resist Xenophon pressure
Australian Senator has asked federal police to include casino sites in review of whether sites such as Full Tilt and PokerStars are in breach of country's Interactive Gambling Act.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have refused to bow to pressure from anti-gambling Senator Nick Xenophon to include casino sites in its review of whether poker sites such as PokerStars and Full Tilt are in breach of the country’s Interactive Gambling Act (IGA).
The AFP said today in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) that it uses a model to determine which cases to devote its limited resources to and refused to respond to Xenophon’s criticisms that it is was ”very disturbing” the AFP was not enforcing the ban on the offer and promotion of interactive gambling under the IGA, passed in 2001.
Xenophon has expanded the remit of his Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform Inquiry, of which he is deputy chair, to include online casino after reports the Australian Crime Commission had, at the request of the FBI, urged the AFP to charge poker sites in alleged breach of the IGA. Xenophon told the Herald that both the FBI and AFP would be invited to make submissions to the inquiry.
According to the Australian press, the FBI’s collaboration with the AFP started in April last year when Australian payment processor turned alleged FBI informant Daniel Tzvetkoff was indicted on money laundering charges in connection with helping US offshore poker companies circumvent laws banning the processing of online gambling payments in the US. The Herald also reported today that Tzvetkoff, said to be living in a New York safe house, could face fraud charges if he ever returns to Australia.
The Australian government also revealed on Friday that “after consultation with the states and territories” it has launched a review of the “operation of the IGA and the effectiveness of the current provisions”.
Matthew Tripp, executive chairman of Paddy Power-owned Sportsbet, immediately issued a statement saying the current prohibition only served to push Australian players to offshore unregulated sites. “The Productivity Commission found Australians are gambling hundreds of millions of dollars on offshore gambling websites “ on both sports-betting and casino/poker “ and these sites have little or no customer protection mechanisms,” said Tripp.
Despite the recommendation of its gambling policy advisory body the Productivity Commission to repeal the IGA and to allow operators to offer poker and casino to Australian residents, the Australian government last summer rejected that recommendation, stating it was not convinced the benefits to the Australian community of such a move would outweigh the risks of increased problem gambling.
According to H2 Gambling Capital, some 61% of the Australian market in 2010 was offshore and unregulated, due largely to the ban on poker, casino and online in-running under the IGA.