Australian Gaming Industry Warns of Online Ban
Updated 4:24 AM ET May 23, 2000
By Belinda Goldsmith
CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) - Australia's Internet gambling industry risks losing up to $4.5 billion a year if the government blocks new online gaming licenses and curb's the industry's growth, a key association said Tuesday.
The federal government, concerned about problem gambling, plans legislation to stop the nation's six states and two territories from issuing any more licenses for a year while it looks at the social and economic costs of online gaming.
The move has triggered a rush by defiant states and Australia's richest man Kerry Packer to get online gambling up quicker, with seven licenses issued over the past week.
"If Australia was to ban Internet gambling, those looking to establish in Australia would simply move offshore, taking jobs and the potential of $9 billion by 2003 in export dollars," Steve Toneguzzo, chairman of the Internet Industry Association online gambling taskforce, told a public forum on Tuesday.
"They would still offer their products to Australians. The only difference being that Australians would not have government protection and nowhere to go if they developed added problems as these activities would be illegal."
To date, about 80 percent of revenue to Australian online gaming companies comes from overseas, with only 0.64 percent of Australians gambling on the Internet.
Online gambling has become a sore point for the national government since an official report last December confirmed Australia had one of the world's highest rates of gambling and 300,000 of its 19 million people had a betting problem.
Although the portion of Australians online is small at present, the federal government argues it is important to ensure the emerging Internet industry is kept under control before it really takes off.
The country has one of the world's highest rates of use of the Internet per capita, with nearly one in four Australian homes having a computer linked to the Internet.
UNREALISTIC
Industry players argue it is unrealistic to try to stop online gambling in Australia, saying punters would simply turn to the 800 or so sites offshore.
However, they called for national regulation to protect consumers, such as credit card bans and betting limits.
Toneguzzo said research by Deutsche Bank showed Internet gaming globally had the potential to generate US$9 billion in revenue a year by 2003, from US$1 billion in 1999.
The Australian industry argues it can snare up to half that market if the U.S. continues to prohibit online gaming, saying punters would be attracted by the country's stable and well-run regulatory system.
Australia's states and governments, which are responsible for regulating gambling, have issued 22 online gaming licenses -- of which seven were issued in the past week prior to the national government's moratorium on new licenses.
Senator Jeannie Ferris, chairwoman of a Senate Information Technology Committee that recommended the moratorium, said the rapidly growing industry needed to take a pause.
"The moratorium was designed to achieve an outcome, not stop the development of online gambling," Ferris told the forum.
"A total of A$12.5 billion -- the same as spent on public hospitals -- was lost last year (by Australian gamblers in total) ... it is time for everybody to take a breath and step back and see co-operatively what can be done." |
