ACMA continues to act against illegal gambling

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has revealed a new long list of illegal gambling operators that the regulator has now ordered internet service providers (ISPs) to ban in the country. This move will prevent the websites from having the opportunity of targeting local audiences or push unregulated and potentially risky gambling products on them.

The latest move focuses on blocking access to 15 offshore gambling websites which have not complied with requests to withdraw voluntarily from the market. The enforcement action includes names such as SpinOasis, Fab Spins, Velvet Spin, Zenith Slots, Bizzo Casino, Wolf Winner, and many others. All of them are part of ACMA’s enforcement action carried out under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 reviewer.

The regulator issued its first blocking offer back in November 2019 in what was at the time met with skepticism. Critics said that the regulator would not have the opportunity to actually police the Internet and strike gambling websites out of accessing the country and its consumers. Three years later, ACMA has already blocked more than 614 websites and services that provide or rather used to provide illegal gambling or affiliate services.

The sweeping enforcement action also cowered many others and saw 180 services leave voluntarily lest they end up being added to the list, which is in all likelihood non-negotiable. ACMA also threatened the most reputable names at the time and said it would contact their license holders in some of the most regulated markets in the world – this would have inflicted serious damage to their reputation.

ACMA has cautioned that even though some websites may look legitimate, they are not necessarily so. The regulator insisted that more needs to be done in order to police the sector and educated consumers, who keep falling victim to unlicensed and unethical websites that threaten their financial and personal data.

There have been a number of similar actions in recent months. In August, ACMA banned Casino Moons, Win Paradise, Legit Gambling Sites, Gamblers Lab, Win Paradise, Extra Vegas, and Winnerama among others. Dozens of others were banned earlier this year, including Pokies.net, one of the websites with the biggest monthly traffic from Australia.

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