Can someone tell me when we will know for sure if poker in australia will be safe approx?

It's not safe it's gone gone gone

Free to Air don't care about racing, they care about Bet365, Sportsbet etc. paying premiums and sponsorships during sporting events. And them saying that the constant barrage of ads during these times 'are very unlikely to cause any harm' is a joke.
In play betting with cashout option is one of the scummiest things introduced by betting sites. The margins for in play are much higher for the site, and cashout in turn keeps money on site and lowers churn. Similar to when Stars raised rake, flattened payouts and made every tournament knockout

https://www.mhs.gov.au/media-release...nline-wagering

State ministers for gambling caught up with Tudge. Hard to see how poker isn't going to be collateral damage in all of this

my submission isnt on there

My guess
- 2% chance of ban this year
- 15% in Jan/feb ban
- 30% in mar/apr ban
- 10% in May/Jun ban
- 25% July/dec ban
- 8% 2018+ ban
- 10% poker is safe

From that link:

Chaired by the Minister for Human Services, Hon Alan Tudge MP, Commonwealth, state and territory gambling ministers met today in Melbourne and gave in-principle agreement to key aspects of the Government’s response to the O’Farrell Review of Illegal Offshore Wagering.

This includes:

a national self-exclusion register for online wagering;
a voluntary pre-commitment scheme for online wagering; and
prohibition of lines of credit being offered by wagering providers

I don't see anything there that specifically excludes online poker. and indeed, if there are lines of credit being offered by these scumbags, then hell yes there should be some significant controls in place.

still believe that there is some chance for online poker. i'd take 10% if you're offering

looks about right imo

Is this going to apply to every single poker site?

I heard partypoker will be fine, its only sites like stars and maybe 888.

There are other small sites too like natural 8 and asia pacific poker

Any clear updates?

Poker is dead. Eventually it will be banned everywhere

Any site that wants to offer their services in regulated areas like U.K. Or USA OR have directors that ever want to travel to Australia will stop offering poker (assuming the legislation passes as is).

So what's the date when we will know for sure? Saw Dec 6th being mentioned on Twitter?

GL Australia

can only happen when it passes the senate. looks like 1 Dec is the last day for 2016.
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliame...tting_Calendar
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliame...tting_Calendar

I'd simply respond with free market, it's hypocritical to ban a skill based form of gambling (in play sports betting) just because of the rake margins. Punters in theory should gravitate towards the lower vig in play betting same as pre match, and same as with sites that have lower rake in poker, if the market was free and efficient anyway.

For what it's worth exchanges like matchbook can offer low vig in play betting that you can currently access in Australia (granted it's based offshore but could apply for a license, and I know a company that plans to offer an Australian exchange with 1% vig), and some sites offer standard vig in play lines.

It's hypocritical to single out one form of skill based gambling (sports betting) from another (poker) just because we don't like ir or the rake is too high (in a free market in theory there should be an opening for a lower rake alternative etc). We're trying to seperate skill based gambling from zero skill gambling (roulette, pokies, etc)

Poker Asia Pacific was forced to close a few months ago due to the legal situation in Australia not allowing an Australian owned business to operate online poker in Australia (I was doing some consulting work for the site at the time). The site just cashed out all of the players and basically said 'sorry we can't legally operate anymore and we've been asked to stop offering online poker from Australia, we'll reopen when/if we're legally cleared to do so. It's a shame too the software was finally getting decent and the rake was legitimately lower than any of the competition and the site had a global launch planned soon (95% of the traffic was Australian) when the software was up to scratch.

This all leads me to believe the government also believe that the offshore sites (Stars, 888 etc) were operating illegally, as the only difference is one of the companies had Australian assets, they just can't do anything about it for the non-Australian based companies. I assume they singled out PAP specifically because it was an Australian owned company and they could actually enforce an order to close down.

Hopefully nothing changes or online poker becomes specifically legal and licensed/regulated or exempt from the IGA, we'll find out soon I guess. The offshore sites could ignore any change and continue offering games but that may affect their licenses elsewhere so we'll probably be in a lolUSA type situation where we can only play on minor unregulated offshore type sites if a ban occurs. Hopefully we did our part lobbying the government and that the politicians on our side like Leyonhjelm can make poker exempt from the IGA or ensure the bill doesn't pass.

Email that ec.sen email address and ask why it isn't viewable etc

I wonder if that kind of inconsistency is even constitutionally legal - not that I see the major poker sites organising themselves to challenge the new legislation in the High Court.

Interesting how all of this has come to light not long after Luke ****ing Brabham decided to kick up a stink because he got caught breaking the law.

Who is Luke Brabham?

He means Luke Brabin whose company owns Poker Asia Pacific which was operating an online poker room. The company was told to close down the poker room a few months ago and complied, paying out all players in the process and suspending operations indefinitely until they're legally cleared to operate. The company also has a poker news website, although it doesn't get updated regularly anymore.

As far as I know Luke and his company didn't even make a submission and had nothing to do with the review, he wasn't even aware of it until I asked him what he thought about it about a week ago. The potential amendment to the IGA is primarily focused on offshore sports betting sites (and no skill gambling sites), it's just a coincidence that the IGA happens to also be the law that forces poker to operate in a legal grey area in Australia as is so we're affected as well by any change to the law.

A lot of people don't like Luke for an assortment of reasons, he has a fairly polarising personality. I did work for his company (I don't anymore) and i'm not going to comment on anything people say about him in one way or another and since I no longer work for his company and it's none of my business, but unless he directly lied to me which he has no reason to do, he wasn't even aware that the review was taking place when I asked him about it and it doesn't appear that he or his company have made any submissions.

From the perspective of the parties pushing for amendment to the IGA, online poker is not a consideration at all, none of the corporate submissions mention it in any relevant context, all of the individual submissions are mostly from 2p2ers saying keep online poker legal and other than that it hasn't come up at all. The politicians don't care about online poker one way or the other with the exception of a few like David Leyonhjelm who is pro-online poker and potentially some who are anti gambling in general.

The lead actors behind this seem to be a combination of anti-gambling interests and more prominently the Australian based licensed sportsbooks that don't want to compete with the offshore gambling sites like Pinnacle/Betcris/5dimes/etc and want to have a monopoly over the Australian sports betting market. This review was going to happen regardless of anything anyone in the poker community did or did not do, it's just unfortunate that online poker is caught up in a fight between Australian and non-Australian sportsbooks because the law that covers those things also covers online poker but isn't very specific about it so we don't know what's going to happen.

I was very surprised that PAP even started offering real money games to Australians. I sort of assumed that they must have moved their servers and assets off shore (Vanuatu, New Caledonia etc).

The Merge network has been operating successfully out of Australia for years but as they do not provide services to Australians, they are left alone.

Prior to the 2013 election, Tony Abbott (then Opposition leader) demanded that real money poker apps be removed from Australian facing app stores.

So the precedent had been set. Have an Australian profile, Australian facing websites, assets in Australia (financial or physical (servers etc) or be physical located in Australia, then the Government has the power to take action and will.

From 2013 when the Liberals regained power, they have been pro-active in moving forward with gambling reform. This is exacerbated by the presence of anti-pokies(slots) crusaders like Independents' Nick Xenophon and Andrew Wilkie.

Both of these Independents don't have a hard line anti-poker stance. They seemed OK with the Labor party proposal in 2011 to legalise, regulate and licence operators to provide real money SnG/MTT games.

Our only hope is that when the Standing committee reports, that they recommend amendments or omissions from the bill.

Specifically the separation of mixed skill/chance games (player v player) from pure chance (player v house) games.

Jenny Williams (who was UK Gaming Commissioner) who oversaw the introduction of the British regulation made a submission earlier to an earlier inquiry that was pro regulation. You can view that submission here (No 21). Hopefully the current committee will also consider submissions from the lapsed inquiry earlier this year.

So what happens next. The standing committee sends the bill (with or without amendments/omissions) back to the House of Representatives (Lower House) for consideration. If the sponsor of the bill (Hon. Alan Tudge MP) is satisfied, there may well be a vote there and then.

The Government have a majority in the House of Reps (76/150) so it would pass by the numbers to the Senate (Upper House). Now it gets tricky. The Government only has 30/76 in the Senate so they need help to get it through.

This is unlikely to come from the Opposition (Labor) who currently have 26 seats as they favour regulation. That leaves the Government needing 9 votes from the 20 crossbenchers which include 3 votes from Team Xenophon (who should support the bill).

The biggest block of votes on the crossbenches belong to the Greens with 9. The Government may be forced into pandering to the Greens on some of their Environmental policies to get their votes.

The other 8 votes are made of a mixture of one policy parties and Independents like One Nation and Family First (stop immigration) and Derryn Hinch (name and shame paedophiles) so it's hard to know which way they will vote.

Sadly, I can't see online poker being separated from the bill (I really hope I'm wrong) and fear for the future of online poker in Australia.

A sad Aussie

i liked PAP but it was always pretty suspect, the law was pretty clear you couldn't offer a poker site to aussies from australia yet conveniently PAP was always in "credits" without AUD or a $ sign in sight

If this thread stays open long enough one of you guys will eventually be right.

Malcolm just called....reckons its gunna be fine...Julie grinds 180s

in around tree fiddy