Australian regulator pulls plug on cryptocurrency wagering

crypto

New member
Online gamblers in Australia have been having a tough few months. Tightening of gambling regulations has resulted in a ban on online poker and sportsbooks have been forced to remove popular features like in-play betting from bookie websites and apps. Now it appears that the Northern Territory Racing Commission has contacted every registered bookmaker to ask them to refrain from facilitating cryptocurrency sports and horse racing betting.

What appears to have prompted this clampdown was an announcement by Northern Territory licensed bookmaker, Neds, that they were about to start accepting bets in bitcoin. This obviously irked the regulators who emailed both bookmakers and betting exchanges stating that "The chairman of the Racing Commission is intending to issue a formal communique to all sports bookmakers and betting exchange operators licensed in the NT if currently transacting in cryptocurrency (for example Bitcoin, Ethereum and the like) for their wagering operations to immediately cease and desist,".

This will be a blow to Neds as they had obviously invested heavily in building a cryptocurrency betting product for their players that will now sit idle. Their chief executive Paul Cherry said that they planned to add a range of cryptocurrencies if bitcoin wagering proved popular. Now they will have to put those plans on hold until the Northern Territory Racing Commission sees sense and grants NT based bookies the option to accept deposits and withdrawals with cryptocurrencies like BTC, LTC, XMR, BCH and ETH.

This over reaction may have been sparked by the fact that some bitcoin poker rooms like Ignition began accepting real-money poker players from Australia when PokerStars, 888poker and PartyPoker exited from Australia.
 

Marathonbet

New member
LOL!! What a joke. And how is the regulator going to stop offshore bookies from offering cryptocurrency sports betting to Australian's? The only thing this stupid directive achieves is putting Australian based bookmakers at a disadvantage, which means they'll make less money and will pay less taxes.
 
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