Oz betting restrictions will push punters offshore, Topping warns

Proposals to ban micro-betting and in-play wagering in Australia would see customers flock to unlicensed offshore bookmakers, William Hill chief executive Ralph Topping has warned.

The Australian reports that Topping, now the owner of the country’s largest bookmaker following the completion of Hills’ acquisition of Sportingbet’s Australian business this week, recommended that bookmakers should be allowed to offer the same bets as offshore companies. This, he explained, would give the government greater control over the gambling industry and help combat corruption.

“One of the most uneducated comments that can be made about sport and its integrity in the UK, is that that kind of ‘in-play betting’ would lead to fixings and whatever else,” the paper reports Topping as saying.

He went on: “There has been none of that happening. The best way you can regulate a business and control it is to have legitimate bookmakers involved. The problem you get is when the business is run by criminals or unregulated bookmakers.”

Australia’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy was given the task of reviewing the country’s online gambling laws in June 2011, and despite initial optimism that the review could see in-play betting regulated by late 2012, only published its findings earlier this month.

A series of 32 recommendations were submitted to the country’s government after the department found that current legislation fails to minimise problem gambling.

“The IGA may, in fact, be exacerbating the risk of harm because of the high level of usage by Australians of prohibited services which may not have the same protections that Australian licensed online gambling providers could be required to have,” the report stated.

However, a mooted trial of online poker in Australia has been scrapped, and legislation to allow in-play and micro-betting (where punters bet on a single event, such as a corner kick in football) looks unlikely to be introduced.

Attempts to regulate online gambling have led to suggestions that Australia could force implement internet service providers (ISPs) to block unlicensed gambling sites, similar to restrictions suggested place in Serbia and Belgium, but The Australian reports that Topping was adamant that such measures would be ineffective.

“There is a vast offshore market here, which I think you will not be able to stop through blocking,” he said. “They have tried it in Italy, they have tried it in France and it has failed and I think you have to acknowledge that the best way to fight that market is to legitimise what happens in our market and allow it onshore and allow responsible participants to have an audit trail on that market.”