Credit Card Ban for Online Casinos and Betting Sites Planned for Australia

The Australian government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is to bring forward legislation that would ban punters from using their credit cards to place wagers with locally-licensed online betting sites.

The proposal could become reality by the end of the year so as to bring the online sector in line with rules already governing betting in land-based casinos, clubs and pubs across the nation of over 26.6 million people.

The envisioned legislation would also look to extend the credit card ban to Australia-licensed online casinos while giving greater associated enforcement powers to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) watchdog.

Cautious Deliberation

Australia began considering a prohibition on the use of credit cards for online wagering in November of 2021 following the recommendation from a parliamentary committee that had conducted an in-depth investigation into the island nation’s corporations and financial services.

The United Kingdom introduced a similar ban from April of 2020 while numerous Australian campaigners and crossbench MPs have been imploring Albanese’s administration to do more to tackle problem gambling.

Albanese was elected in May of last year and revealed that his government plans to start consulting with stakeholders in advance of bringing forward draft legislation embracing the associated technical rules for the implementation of the envisioned credit card ban.

Existing Expertise

The 60-year-old politician explained that the coming legislation could involve the use of bank identification number (BIN) technology so as to recognize and block credit card payments, which is a system already being utilized by Australian land-based casinos and poker machine venues.

Amanda Rishworth serves as Australia’s Social Services Minister and told the Daily Mail newspaper that the Albanese administration intends to work with state and territory regulators so as to introduce further gambling reforms.

“Our government is committed to taking action in this space,” Rishworth said. 

“We've implemented new taglines, we're introducing BetStop and now with this latest measure we're taking further action to help Australians who are vulnerable to harmful online wagering.”

Alarming Evidence

A recent report from the Australian Institute of Family Studies estimated that 7.2% of Australians are at risk or have already experienced gambling harm and that the impacts of each individual case usually stretch to impact around six others encompassing friends and family.

Australian punters are altogether thought to lose at least $25 billion per year while a parliamentary inquiry scrutinizing online gambling earlier this month heard that around 500,000 adults have already taken advantage of problem gambler self-exclusion schemes.

Conservative Computation

The Chief Executive Officer for the Australian Banking Association (ABA), Anna Bligh, told this probe that she had been surprised at the high number, which related to more than 775,000 debit and credit cards, as such self-exclusion tools were not regularly promoted.

Bligh furthermore pronounced that data from Australia’s ‘big four’ banks as well as the principally retail-facing Bendigo and Adelaide Bank indicated that some customers place blocks on multiple cards, which means that the 500,000 figure may in reality sit much higher.

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An unconnected survey from the ABA recently ascertained that over 80% of Australians think wagering with credit cards should be banned or restricted while the nation’s Communications Minister, Michelle Rowland, described protecting people from gambling harms as one of the Albanese government's key priorities.

“It's as simple as this; people should not be betting with money they do not have,” Rowland said.