PokerStars may face action in Australia

Eric Bianchi
May 23, 2011
4 Comments

PokerStars logoPokerStars are facing action in a second country in two months, as Australian authorities believe one of the company’s subsidiaries may be breaking a law. Enacted in 2001, Australia’s Interactive Gambling Act (IGA) was put in place to make it illegal for a company to advertise an interactive gambling service. This is something that one Australian publication believes may have been committed by PokerStars.

eGR Magazine discovered that the Oldford Group, according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, owns New South Wales based company GP Information Services. That is a problem as the Oldfield Group is one of the businesses being sought for forfeiture by US authorities as part of the Black Friday indictments.

Under the IGA providing online poker, bingo and casino games to Australians can draw fines as high as AUS$1.1m a day. No one has ever been charged and a spokeswoman for Digital Economy Minister Steven Conroy explained that it’s difficult to do so.

“As the internet is a cross-jurisdictional medium, it is difficult for Australia to enforce our laws on companies not based in Australia. The Government continues to examine the regulatory approaches taken by other countries to online gambling to see what can be learnt about the best way to respond,” the spokeswoman said.

It all comes just over a month after US authorities charged PokerStars as part of the Black Friday indictments that rocked the online gaming industry and continue to do so now. The indictments are likely to dominate large parts of the discussion at this week’s iGaming Super Show in Dublin where CalvinAyre.com’s first anniversary party will also be taking place. Pack up the Alka Seltzer as you’ll need at least 10!

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Tags: Article, Australia, Black Friday, PokerStars
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  • Gerard

    Australia would be one of the first nation that regulated igaming worldwide. But as the article say, those laws are embedded with lots of loopholes and operators certainly knew how to play around with it.

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