Australian Gambling and Betting Laws

The statistics were obtained from cross-sectional analysis of Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey data, wave 15, which is the first wave to include gambling questions. The HILDA Survey was designed so that participants' responses (17,606 participants in wave 15) could be generalised to the Australian adult population. Table 2 shows NSW 2017-18 Budget wagering tax revenue projections, reflecting the lower tax rates and increasing parity payments. Wagering tax revenue is projected to fall from 6 per cent of total gambling tax revenue in 2015-16 to 2.5 per cent in 2020-21. 1 The fixed odds tax rates are applicable to racing and all other sports betting. Gambling Income Tax in Australia. Australia taxes professional gamblers income tax at a rate of 30%. This is not a concern to anyone other than those gambling as a profession / primary source of income. For all recreational players gambling is generally not considered income for tax purposes. GST when conducting gambling activities. If you conduct gambling activities, GST is payable on the margin between money received and money paid out for a gambling event. People were gambling on horse racing in Australia from the early 1800s. Over a century later, they saw the introduction of legal poker machines. Gambling tax in Australia doesn’t apply to winnings if they were made via an online casino or a land-based casino.

As mentioned, online sports and horse race betting are legal in Australia, and for the operators it is handled at a state and territorial level. This section provides an overview of our ten states and territories that have gambling commissions.

Australian Capital Territory

The Gambling and Racing Commission is licensing body of the Australian Capital Territory. It first legalized online casinos effective 24 September 1998. This was overridden by the Commonwealths law (IGA) in 2001. Today there are no licensed online casinos in ACT, and only a single brick and mortar casino – Casino Canberra Ltd located at 21 Binara Street, Civic.

They do however license other forms of gambling. For brick and mortar this includes lotteries, housies (bingo), sports betting, horse racing and of course pokies. Detailed information about the various laws can be found on their website www.gamblingandracing.act.gov.au.

As far as licensing online sports and horse race betting is concerned, this commission does not have the best track record. Google searching the topic Sports Alive you can read about their failures as a gambling commission. They do however have a lot of favourable player rules, open disclosures and do mitigate player vs. bookmaker disputes. Again all these details can be found on their website.

New South Wales

The Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing is responsible for licensing all forms of gambling in New South Wales. For sports betting they license Tabcorp (NSW Division) and a small number of bookmakers. While they do have rules in place for online betting, excessive regulatory requirements makes this is a less appealing location for internet operators. For offline betting the gambling commission is however strong. They regulate Australia’s second largest casino ‘The Star’ as well as lotteries, pokies, pubs and clubs, housie and much more. Their website www.olgr.nsw.gov.au is comprehensive covering all gambling laws, licensing requirements, dispute resolution and more.

Norfolk Island

Many Australians might not even be aware Norfolk Island exists. This is a tiny island with a population around 2,300 that while part of the Australian Commonwealth enjoys the most freedom to remain self-governing. They act primarily as a tax haven and it is difficult to evaluate how safe their gambling commission actually is. We can note that this is where Austote was licensed before it was purchased by IASBet, and is now where bookmaker.com.au is licensed. Here the gambling is regulated by the Norfolk Island Gaming Authority whose website is www.gaming.gov.nf.

Northern Territory

Northern Territory has the most significant Australian gambling history. In 1993, they issued Centrebet the first ever Australian bookmaker licence. While worldwide Intertops was the first online sportsbook, Centrebet came online the same year. In 1996 they became the first to operate legally from the Southern Hemisphere.

A limited number of brick and mortar casinos have been licensed here since the late 1970’s. The oldest is Skycity Darwin, formerly known as both MGM Grand Darwin and the Diamond Beach Casino, and the most noteworthy is Lasseters Hotel Casino. This property opened in 1981. In 1999, it launched the first legal Australian casino called Lasseters Online. This story was discussed earlier in this article.

In February 2000, the Liquor Commission, Private Security Licensing Authority, Escort Agency Licensing Board, Gaming Machine Commission and Gaming Control Commission all merged to create the Northern Territory Licensing Commission which now (among other tasks) regulates all forms of gambling in NT.

The NT Licensing Commission is strict about which companies they are willing to license. However, they also have the most favourable tax rates of all states and territories. While elsewhere operators can pay up to 58.33% on their upper earnings, here all taxes are capped. The scheme is 10% of gross profits paid monthly but to a maximum of $250,000 per year in taxes. This is quite attractive to major corporations. As a result, many of the top global bookmakers have launched Australian divisions from NT including www.bet365.com.au and www.sportingbet.com.au.

You can learn more about the NT licensing commission at their website: www.nt.gov.au/justice/commission/

Queensland

The Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation licenses all forms of gambling in Queensland Australia. Their website archives all are at, www.olgr.qld.gov.au. You can see from this page the first brick and mortar casino legislation came in 1982, pokies in 1991, Keno in 1996, lotteries in 1997, online gambling in 1998 and charitable games in 1999. This commission is dedicated to preventing minors from accessing gambling and has a strong focus on protecting problem gamblers.

Queensland is not an attractive location for online betting operators. Their tax rate is 20% of on net profit (of which 8.5% is allocated to the Community Investment Fund) and they also require a $192,900 quarterly licence fee. With the high tax rate, TAB Corp – who also operators keno here, appears to be the only operator interested in offering online betting from Queensland. This is because, remember, most Australians can gamble legally at sites licensed in other states or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

Worth noting is Queensland does have three well established land casinos in Jupiters Hotel and Casino, The Reef Hotel Casino and Treasury Casino.

South Australia

I mentioned earlier in this article, most Australian gambling laws relate to the operators as opposed to telling players what they can do with their own money. South Australia laws are an exception. Here the gambling laws are strict and were first laid out in the Lottery and Gaming Act of 1936.

This law straight out banned many games. For example it includes: “The games, tricks, or devices commonly known as “the purse trick”, “the three card trick”, “thimble rig”, “faro”, “banker”, “fan tan”, “two up”, “pitch-and-toss”, “hazard”, and all other games played in the same way, or of a kindred nature, are hereby declared to be unlawful games.. It also made it an up to $10,000 fine and up to 2-years imprisonment for any public gambling. Even a simple wager involving a coin was declared an offense and carried a $1,250 fine. This is only a few examples of the many restrictions included in Lottery and Gaming Act.

The forms of gambling long allowed in South Australia were lottery and a horse racing tote licensed by the Lotteries Commission. This same commission issued Adelaide Casino a license to operate a casino on its behalf in 1985. To this date, this remains the only land based casino in the state.

Originally, all gambling here was owned by the state government. It wasn’t until after the
Independent Gambling Authority Act, 1995 passed that private gambling became widespread in the state. This created the current gambling commission in place now that is known simply as the Independent Gambling Authority. Their website is www.iga.sa.gov.au.

In 2000, the Independent Gambling Authority, passed the TAB (Disposal) Act, sold its casino to SKYCITY Entertainment Group, and passed both the Racing (Proprietary Business Licensing) Act and the Authorised Betting Operations Act. While these actions privatised gambling in South Australia, the rules and laws are still excessive.

To make a long story short, it is only legal for those residing here to use official licensed betting sources. Luckily, IGA does offer interstate licensing to online betting companies licensed in other Australian states and territories. Their website includes a List of Authorized Betting Operators. Note that all of these companies agree to follow IGA rules which prohibit gamblers from being enticed. This means South Australians are generally prohibited from receiving bonuses and are not eligible for promotions offered by Australian betting sites.

Tasmania

Tasmania is Australia’s smallest state and has a history of being a gambling trend setter. On 14 December 1968 it held a one-question referendum on whether to issue Australia’s first land based casino license to the Federal Group. This passed with a 53% yes vote, and on 10 February 1973 the Wrest Point Hotel Casino opened becoming the first Aussie casino. It is still standing today and is located in the suburb of Sandy Bay in Hobart, Tasmania. In 1982 a second casino still standing opened here – Country Club Casino located in Launceston, Tasmania.

Online betting from Tasmania came about sometime after the Tasmanian Gaming Commission was established as the result of their Gaming Control Act 1993. Today this is a small three-person body whose members are Mr Peter Hoult (Chairman), Professor Kate Warner and Mr Stuart Barry. What makes them unique again from a trend setter standpoint is to date they are the only gambling commission in Australia that has licensed a peer to peer betting exchange. This is the state in which www.betfair.com.au is licensed which is available to residents of all Australian states and territories.

To learn more about the Tasmanian Gaming Commission refer to their website.

Victoria

The Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation– known when referencing gambling only as VCGR – regulates all forms of gambling in Victoria. This includes the states single casino (Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex) which is the largest in Australia. It also includes pokies, wagering, keno, interactive gaming, bookmakers, public lotteries, trade promotion lotteries, and community and charitable gaming (such as raffles and bingo).

This commissions website www.vcglr.vic.gov.au is extremely comprehensive. Most anything you want to know can be found here. You can also find the list of the over 500 different gambling venues they oversee. You can even find net monthly loss by venue. The information that can be found here truly seems endless. In short, this is a very well ran gambling commission. Even key employees must be licensed as part of their employment, which involves strict background checks and agreement to adhere to a code of ethics.

For this article’s purpose there isn’t too much to comment on regarding online betting except for one particular intricacy. The same as South Australia, Victoria has a rule that prevents bookmakers from inducing gamblers to open accounts and/or make deposits. Victoria residents are excluded from receiving free bets, sign up bonuses, and certain promotions at Australian online bookmakers.

As far as operators located here, this is not a popular state for running an online betting site. The tax on fixed odds sports betting is 19.11%, compared to 10% with a $250,000 annual cap in Northern Territory. Also, gambling regulation in the state now totals over 1,000 written pages. The compliance expenses and large taxes operators face are significant. There have however been recent proposals for gambling tax reform. This could change in the future, but at this time this is not a state that appeals to operators of online betting websites.

Western Australia

Western Australia was initially opposed to gambling. Only two years after becoming a self-governing British colony, the Western Australian Police Act 1892 made not only betting an illegal act but also playing any game of chance for entertainment. Despite this illegal gambling thrived and in 1936 the Lotteries Control Act was passed to allow charitable lotteries. Both the Betting Control Act 1954 and the Totalisator Agency Board Betting Act 1960 made horse race betting more accessible. In 1982 charitable bingo was allowed.

By the early 1980’s other Australian states had land based casinos but the government here was split and mostly opposed to the idea. Finally, what is now named the Crown Perth was built and opened on 30 December 1985. The link just provided is to its Wikipedia page which covers the history of the casino and the surrounding legislation.

Today, all forms of gambling in Western Australia are regulated by Department of Racing, Gaming and Liquor. Their website is extremely comprehensive and includes what games are allowed, who is licensed, the history of gambling in the state and much more. To learn more about Western Australia gambling laws and regulatory information visit www.rgl.wa.gov.au.

Gambling Income Tax in Australia

Australia taxes professional gamblers income tax at a rate of 30%. This is not a concern to anyone other than those gambling as a profession / primary source of income. For all recreational players gambling is generally not considered income for tax purposes.

The rules of whether a player is recreational or not have been well tested. Previously, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) was looking to collect 30% of Joe Hachem’s $7.5 million (USD) prize for winning the 2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Hachem argued at the time he won he was playing poker as a hobby and it wasn’t his main source of income. The ATO eventually agreed and he owed no taxes on his winning.

Understand if a player can spend $10,000 buying into a poker tournament and is not professional despite booking a $7.5 million (USD) win, chances are considerable most reading this article owe no Aussie taxes on their gambling winnings.

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Executive Summary

This report provides an overview of gambling activity in Australia in 2015, with respect to participation, expenditure, and problems among regular gamblers. The report follows a format and style common to gambling prevalence studies conducted in Australia and elsewhere.

As with those studies, the report is intended as a reference document. It is written primarily for researchers and government officials who have an interest in Australian gambling statistics. This report makes a unique contribution to knowledge of gambling in Australia, since Australia has no prior history of surveying and reporting on gambling activity among regular gamblers at the national level.

The content consists primarily of descriptive statistics with a focus on population estimates. The statistics were obtained from cross-sectional analysis of Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey data, wave 15, which is the first wave to include gambling questions. The HILDA Survey was designed so that participants' responses (17,606 participants in wave 15) could be generalised to the Australian adult population.

The participation statistics include population-representative estimates of the proportion and number of Australians who spent money on up to ten common gambling activities (lotteries, instant scratch tickets, electronic gaming machines, race betting, sports betting, keno, casino table games, bingo, private betting and poker) in a typical month of 2015. The report refers almost entirely to these gamblers, which we refer to as regular gamblers.

Chapter 1 of this report provides the background to the study and details regarding study design and methodology. Chapters 2 and 3 respectively provide statistics regarding typical gambling participation and expenditure.Chapters 4 and 5 address participation and expenditure among adults who experienced gambling-related problems. In Chapter 6 gambling expenditure is positioned within the household budgets of low, middle and high-income households. As well, rates of financial stress are compared between households that contain members with and without gambling problems. Additional tables, including a comparison of the HILDA Survey gambling statistics with recent state/territory and national prevalence data and industry revenue data, can be found in the Appendices.

The report identifies an estimated 6.8 million regular gamblers in 2015, among whom lottery participation was very common (76%). Instant scratch tickets (22%) and electronic gaming machines (EGMs; 21%) followed, attracting 1.4 to 1.5 million gamblers. Less than a million gambled regularly on anything else, including racing (14%), sports betting (8%), keno (8%), casino table games (3%), bingo (3%), private betting (2%) and poker (2%). It was common for people to participate either solely in lotteries (59%), or a combination of lotteries and up to two additional activities.

While lotteries and instant scratch tickets were the most popular activities, individual gamblers spent comparatively little on these activities in a typical month, and therefore over the entirety of the year ($695 and $248 per year on average). Those who gambled on Electronic Gaming Machines spent a great deal more per year ($1,292 on average). So too did those who regularly gambled on races ($1,308), sports ($1,032), casino table games ($1,369), and particularly poker ($1,758).

Regular gamblers, viewed by activity, have quite different profiles. For example, compared to the Australian population:

• lottery participants were over-represented among older couples living without children;
• EGM participants were over-represented among people for whom welfare payments formed their main source of income;
• bingo participants were over-represented among retired women living alone;
• regular race or sports bettors were over-represented among men on higher incomes, yet the race bettors were more likely to be older and live in outer regional/remote areas; and
• sports bettors were more likely to be younger and live in an inner-regional area or major city.

Gambling problems are indicated in the HILDA Survey by endorsing one or more items on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). According to the standard use of the PGSI, 1.1 million regular gamblers were estimated to have behaved in ways that caused or put them at risk of gambling-related problems.

Among this subset of regular gamblers, there were more sociodemographic similarities than differences. Those who experienced problems were generally more likely to be young, single, unemployed or not employed (excluding retirees and full-time students), Indigenous, men, living in rental accommodation, in a low socioeconomic area, and were more likely to draw their income from welfare payments than those who had no problems.

Those with problems were also more likely to participate regularly in certain activities. This led to rates of problems being particularly high among participants in six activities (EGMs, race betting, sports betting, casino table games, private betting, and poker) with almost 1-in-2 gamblers on any of these activities experiencing one or more issues.

Another thing those with problems had in common was higher than average spending on gambling. This was particularly so among EGM, race and sports betting participants. Those experiencing the greatest problems spent more than four times as much on these activities, and on gambling overall, as those without problems. Well over half of all expenditure by regular gamblers on these activities came from people who had problems.

Overall, more than forty percent of gambling expenditure by regular gamblers, aggregated across all activities, was accounted for by the 17% who experienced problems.

Gambling expenditure has significant financial ramifications for low-income households, particularly among households where gamblers experienced problems. Gamblers living in low-income households spent a much greater proportion of their household's total disposable income on gambling than high-income households (10% vs 1% on average) - this despite spending less in actual dollar terms ($1,662 vs $2,387).

Gamblers who had problems spent much more of their households' income on gambling than other regular gamblers, with those experiencing severe problems in low-income households spending an average 27% of their disposable household income on gambling - equivalent to four times their yearly household utility bills, or more than half the grocery bills for that income group.

Iowa Gambling Revenue

Consistent with these patterns of expenditure, the households of those with gambling problems had a much greater proportion of stressful financial events. Inability to pay electricity, gas or telephone bills on time, and needing to ask friends or family for financial help, were common occurrences.

Tax Revenue Gambling Australia 2019

Future waves of the HILDA Survey will provide nationally representative longitudinal data with which to measure changes in gambling activity and effects on individuals and their households.

The authors would like to thank all those colleagues who contributed to creating gambling questions for the HILDA survey and for their input into this report. In particular, we would like to thank:

• Doctor Anna Thomas, Australian Gambling Research Centre, Australian Institute of Family Studies
• Doctor Jennifer Baxter, Australian Institute of Family Studies
• Assistant Professor Nicki Dowling, Deakin University
• Professor Bryan Rodgers, Australian National University
• Acting Director Rachel Henry, Welfare Quarantining and Gambling Branch, Department of Social Services
• Professor Mark Wooden, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne
• Doctor Diana Warren, Australian Institute of Family Studies
• Director Anne Hollonds, Australian Institute of Family Studies
• And all of the participants who took part in the HILDA Survey and made this report possible.

Disclaimer

Indiana Gambling Revenue

This report uses unit record data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to either DSS or the Melbourne Institute. As well, the views expressed may not reflect those of the Australian Institute of Family Studies or the Australian Government.

Gambling Revenues By State

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