{"id":7193,"date":"2020-06-10T21:39:26","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T21:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=7193"},"modified":"2026-04-24T04:32:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:32:29","slug":"australia-social-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/australia-social-casinos","title":{"rendered":"Australia: bill raised against online gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The bill seeks to ban so-called “social casinos” not currently covered by a ban on online casinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- Australian member of parliament Andrew Wilkie has put forward a Bill to try to ban \u201csocial casinos\u201d that operate through social media, websites or apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His bill proposes amending legislation to ban all apps and websites that take money from users in exhange for providing virtual chips instead of actual dollars as “cash outs”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The independent politician said through his Twitter account: \u201cThis morning I introduced the Interactive Gambling Amd’t Bill that would ban social casinos. The ball is now in the Gov\u2019s court. Either it will see sense & support the bill or rollover & get its tummy tickled again by the gambling industry\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an article on his own website he wrote: \u201cSocial casinos are games played on social media platforms like Facebook, websites or phone apps. In these virtual casinos players are enticed in with free chips and credits, only to be encouraged to pay real money to continue playing or place higher bets. The real kicker is that players can\u2019t cash out once the game is finished.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He argues that, while online casino games are illegal in Australia, so-called \u201csocial-casinos\u201d are not and that his bill sought to amend that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he considered social casinos to be particularly dangerous to children and young adults as they are embedded into the social media platforms. Wilkie wants the government to take action against them this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Gambling Insider, social casinos are relatively new to the business but have gained a following and become a multibillion-dollar industry in Australia. Data from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation shows Australians spent a total of $25 billion on gambling<\/a><\/em><\/strong> between 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The bill seeks to ban so-called “social casinos” not currently covered by a ban on online casinos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Australian MP Andrew Wilkie has introduced a bill to ban \"social casinos\" operating via social media and apps, arguing they circumvent existing online casino prohibitions by accepting real money for virtual chips without cash-out options. This legislative proposal aims to close a perceived regulatory loophole in a multibillion-dollar industry, particularly citing risks to children and young adults.","focusai_entities":"Andrew Wilkie, Gambling Insider, Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation","focusai_location":"Australia, Victoria","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.8), affiliate_publisher (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.75), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.85), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Regulatory Scope Expansion","query":"What specific amendments to the Interactive Gambling Act are proposed to redefine \"gambling\" to encompass virtual chip transactions in social casinos, and what are the implications for B2B\/B2C licensing frameworks?"},{"label":"Market Impact Analysis","query":"Given the \"multibillion-dollar\" valuation of the Australian social casino market, what are the projected economic impacts, including potential revenue displacement and job losses, if this ban is enacted?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,153,158],"tags":[289,4138],"class_list":["post-7193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-igaming-news","category-slider-home","tag-australia","tag-online-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21834,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7193\/revisions\/21834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}