Online Gambling

Online gambling websites first appeared on the internet in the mid 1990s.

In 1994, the government of the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda passed the Free Trade & Processing act which legislated to allow licenses to be granted to companies that applied to open online casinos.

That same year, the first online gambling software provider was founded - Microgaming. To this day, Microgaming still runs popular software that many online gambling sites use to power their casinos and poker rooms.

There's a little conjecture about which was in fact the first online casino to accept wagers over the internet. Most other websites seem to claim that InterCasino was the first, in 1996.

But our research shows that it was in fact Microgaming's Gaming Club that opened first, in October 1995. The Gaming Club still offers Microgaming's casino and poker software and is licensed by the government of Gibraltar.

The Kahanawake Gaming Commission was also established in 1996 in Canada. It controls and regulates online gaming activity from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake and issues gaming licenses to many of the world's online casinos and poker rooms, aiming to keep the operations of licensed online gambling companies fair and transparent.

Throughout 1997 and 1998 online casinos continued to develop improved software and refine their operations. Due to the slower bandwidth speeds and servers of the time, there were many connectivity issues and network dropouts in the early days of online gambling, however business research and consulting firm, Frost & Sullivan, reported that the industry still generated $834.5 million in revenue in 1998 alone.

Gambling

On June 28, 2001, it became illegal to offer online gambling to Australian residents. All of the particulars of this law are detailed in the Interactive Gambling Act (IGA).
Interactive Gambling Act

The IGA was passed by the Australian government to help protect their citizens from the negative effects of online gambling. The act targets online gambling companies that are offering their services to Australian residents. It applies to both companies based or owned in Australia and foreign companies. Online gaming sites must follow due diligence by informing customers of the IGA and that they cannot knowingly offer services to people physically located in Australia. Companies that are found in violation of the act can face fines of up to $220,000 per day for individuals working with an online site or $1.1 million per day for the company offering the service. Australian citizens engaging in gambling online cannot be punished, only the company.

Advertising
The IGA has also made it a punishable offense to advertise "real money" interactive gambling, such as online poker or casino games, of any kind to Australian citizens that are physically located in Australia. This advertising ban extends across all media varieties including online, print, television and radio advertising. There is an official complaint process to be followed by citizens wishing to lodge a complaint about advertising. This complaint process is managed by the Australian Broadcast Authority.

Exceptions

The one major exception to the Interactive Gambling Act is online sports betting. There are many government approved and licensed sites where Australians can place bets on sporting events including Betfair, Sportingbet and Centrebet. These sites only allow bets to be placed before the sporting event has begun. This is seen by the IGA as removing the "interactive" part of the gambling. Another exception to the IGA is online lotteries. These online lotteries are still considered to be legal because they are also not considered to be interactive. However, instant win scratch tickets are not considered legal.

Act Review

In the late summer of August 2011, Senator Stephen Conroy released a discussion paper calling for a review of the IGA. This senator is the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and states that there are 5 reasons for a review which must be presented by the first half of 2012. These five stated reasons are: the necessity to analyze findings by various committees on gambling, the necessity to find a method to minimize the negative aspects of gambling, the adequacy or lack thereof for the act to cover emerging technologies, the necessity to analyze the effects of gambling in a regulated environment and the expansion of the online casino industry's effect on problem gambling.
Problem gambling has a number of negative aspects that can impact people's lives in much the same way that other addictions can. The Australian government has tried to decrease its population's rates of problem gambling by enforcing the IGA. The act outlaws companies from offering real money, interactive online gambling to people who are located in Australia.