If you join the libs, is there anything you can do from within that would help?

But seriously, online poker is not worth the price of your soul.

Can anyone explain why ACR would withdraw from Australia?? I don't understand it, I thought they didn't really care?

yeah doesn't really make sense...

I am never going to be able to play another online MTT on a legal site again. Pesimistic, but that is my line.

A change of leader has certainly helped matters.

Makes no sense unless they either plan to run part of their operation from Australia or stop serving other illegal markets like the US

I guess let's enjoy Ignition and our random asian apps and hopefully the new government decides to pass some legislation or if they lose government to Labor then hopefully Labor wants the revenue after the election.

And the chances of that with the greens most likely to hold the balance of power in the senate? There will be no movement to legalising poker if Labor gets in and by the looks of the opinion polls it will be another 4 years until we can put it on the table again.

I have no specific info in this situation, however, there are a bunch of factors that might be opaque to customers. If I were to guess - and I really can only emphasise that this is a guess - I would start by looking at what's happening with regards to payment processors. It is possible that whoever ACR was using to process card transactions in Australia is ending their service, or something similar.

The promises silly Bill is making he will need the extra revenue.

WPN+Ignition was totally viable for MTT'ers. This is brutal.

anyone have any idea what type of legislation/regulation is being put forward?

I just hope the plan is not segregated Australian sites... i hate to say it as i know people are working hard on this, but if that's the proposal its almost not worth the effort. It has to be regulated access to global pools on stars/party.

annoyingly I was actually considering putting some money back on WPN as only 4 tabling on Ignition is getting boring

The only way this is going to happen is to get behind a serious effort to lobby the government by parties who have deep pockets (ahem.. pokerstars).

A similar thing is happening in the states with PS at a state not federal level, look a NJ. This is the only way this is going to happen imo this ring fenced aussie market thing is just going into the 'too hard basket'. When it comes to legislative priorities from a political point of view making gambling more accessible to a country with one of the highest rates of gambling in the world is proly not going to be something too high on the list when it comes to winning elections

The plan is not segregated sites there has been no mention of that by any politicians involved in the process

The proposal is to form a regulatory body through which poker sites can apply to be licensed to be used by Australian customers similar to the UK model.

Yes it would help if Stars wanted to actually put their deep pockets behind the lobbying effort

No, we don't have a position from Labor one way or the other on online poker. The QLD LNP is on board but the national party as a whole has not endorsed it, one state branch has.

Most of the crossbench is pro online poker. Greens have not taken a strong stance against but have not voted for it either although they did send a Senator to the inquiry at least and didn't seem to object to the concept. Obviously we'll have to start over when the LNP loses government in 2019 but it's not impossible or anything.

Once the Morrison government is settled in in a few weeks hopefully we'll have a better idea of whether they'll be receptive to a push to pass this before the 2019 election.

Is there a list of sites that we can still play on?

Cheers

Ignition/Bodog, Poker Master, Bitcoin sites like swc, PPP Clubs

in otherwords only the crap ones

Legal question. Can we start a poker site in Australia and offer our services to Australia and the rest of the world?

Google Luke Brabin conviction, Poker Asia Pacific and that will answer your question - I did some work for that site, cliffs, it was shut down and the owned had to plead guilty to offering an illegal gambling service to Australians which was a shame because software issues aside it was a legitimate low rake alternative to the major sites.

In other words, no.

Ridiculously enough it was paying taxes on Australian business's revenue that did him in when Stars were doing business in Australia too at the time and not paying any taxes and nothing happened to them other than they pulled out to protect their licenses elsewhere because the law is unenforceable for companies that don't have Australian assets. lol government, etc

That said if you happened to live in Antigua or whatever and never planned to return to Australia or do business with banks here you could start a site doing business with Australians and the law would be unenforceable, the way it is now for Ignition basically because Calvin Ayre's never going to come here so what can they do

But running a poker site that offers online poker to Australians out of Australia is just asking for a criminal conviction under the current laws unfortunately - that goes for PPP clubs too I believe although again they can only really target anything run out of Australia in Australian jurisdiction etc

I realise I'm clueless to these things. I thought I understood but I realise I don't. Can you clarify a very basic question for me? For what reason has online poker been banned in Australia? And, have online pokies been banned? If not, what is the justification for banning a skill game, and not banning a skilless game?

government doesn't want you playing poker for a living or in your spare time. they want you to work at actual businesses and work a second job in your spare time to make Australia Great Again.

gambling doesn't make a country great. gambling is bad.

mmkay

so why not ban pokies?

It was banned as a side effect of them updating the Interactive Gambling Act to address something to do with in play sports betting (which is also stupid to ban but that's a separate point) - basically any online gambling in Australia that doesn't have a way to be licensed is now illegal, and poker falls into that category since there's no way for it to be licensed the way that say sports books can apply for a license in Australia. Online slots have that issue now too I believe and are effectively banned, but again it's unenforceable like Ignition continuing to offer online poker to Australians, any online slots company based offshore with its assets based offshore could offer them to Australians, and they do, with no way for the government to enforce the fact that it's illegal.

They don't ban in person pokies, which is the source of the vast majority of problem gambling in Australia for two reasons - they're addicted to the revenue and the scumbags at Clubs Australia are too powerful a lobbying group for them to go up against. Obviously any sane person knows it's absurd that you can buy into a $250,000 tournament walking in off the street into Crown but can't play a $2 donkament on Stars, but lots of politicians are stupid unfortunately. A handful of them got it, led by Leyonhjelm, and the QLD LNP agrees but the LNP on a federal level don't seem to care about online poker. At some point before the election we should definitely make it an issue because if the LNP aren't going to act on online poker, then we have no reason to support them as poker players, remember online poker was banned under their watch, and both the LNP and Labor voted for the legislation that effectively banned it. Neither party deserves our number one vote as poker players, Leyonhjelm is the guy leading the fight for online poker and if that's the issue we're voting on we should support the LDP. Obviously some of their policies are objectionable to most people including me and others are great, such is the nature of Libertarian parties, but since they're not going to be in majority, it's in our interests as online poker players that they make up as much as possible of the crossbench that controls the balance of power so that we have a chance to keep online poker on the agenda regardless of whether Labor or the LNP win government as there's a chance Leyonhjelm can trade it for his vote on some other issue either government cares about

Thanks for replying. I'm learning. (I had a quick look through the LDP wikipedia polices list. I don't think I could vote for them even for the sake of online poker, unfortunately, but that's besides the point that I'm trying to figure out).

I still don't understand this bit "...basically any online gambling in Australia that doesn't have a way to be licensed is now illegal". What does "be licensed" actually mean? What things are licensed and how were they licensed?