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Is Gambling Legal in Australia? Laws & 2026 Updates
Mostly — but Australia runs one of the world's strangest split-level regimes. Whether gambling is legal depends entirely on how and where you do it. Land-based gambling — pokies in pubs and clubs, casinos, lotteries, keno, racing and the TAB — is legal and licensed, but regulated state-by-state, with eight different regulators and eight different rulebooks. Online gambling is governed federally by a single statute, the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (IGA), and here the line is sharp: online sports betting, racing and lotteries are legal and licensed, but online casinos, online slots/pokies, online poker and in-play (live) sports betting are outright prohibited to anyone physically in Australia. Add the world's heaviest per-capita gambling losses, a June 2024 ban on credit cards and crypto for online betting, an ACMA website-blocking machine that has cut off more than 1,300 illegal sites, and a sweeping advertising crackdown announced in April 2026 — and you have a country that gambles more than any other on Earth while tightening the screws faster than almost anyone. This page maps all of it.
Key takeaways
- Split system. Land-based gambling is legal and licensed state-by-state; online gambling is governed federally by the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, enforced by the ACMA.
- Online casinos, online pokies, online poker and in-play (live) betting are PROHIBITED to people in Australia. Online sports/racing betting placed before an event, plus online lotteries, are legal and licensed.
- Players don't commit an offence — the IGA targets operators, not punters. Penalties run to roughly A$1.1 million per day for corporations supplying prohibited services.
- Minimum age is 18 for all gambling, in every state and territory.
- June 2024: a national ban on using credit cards, credit-related products and digital currency (incl. Bitcoin) for online wagering took effect, with fines up to about A$234,750.
- Crypto gambling is effectively banned domestically and exists only as an offshore grey market; AUSTRAC regulates digital-currency exchanges for AML/CTF.
- ACMA has blocked 1,300+ illegal offshore gambling sites since 2019 and has driven ~220 illegal operators out of the market.
- Australians lose more per adult than any nation on Earth — about A$31.5 billion in 2022–23, roughly A$1,555 per adult (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare / Grattan Institute).
- April 2026: the government's response to the Murphy Report announced a major gambling-advertising crackdown and an online keno ban, taking effect from 1 January 2027.
Is gambling legal in Australia — online and land-based?
The answer splits cleanly in two, and getting this distinction right is the whole game.
Land-based gambling is legal and deeply embedded in Australian life. Poker machines — known universally as "pokies" — sit in thousands of pubs and clubs, casinos operate in every mainland capital, and state lotteries, keno, the TAB and on-course racing are all licensed. But there is no national land-based regulator: each state and territory licenses and polices its own venues under its own legislation, which is why the rules differ across the country (most visibly, Western Australia bans pokies everywhere except its single Perth casino).
Online gambling is governed federally by the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (IGA), and here the law draws a hard line. The IGA makes it an offence to provide certain interactive gambling services to a person physically located in Australia. Prohibited services include online casinos, online slots/pokies, online roulette, blackjack, craps, online poker, and — since a 2017 amendment — in-play (live) betting placed online after a sporting event has started.
"Interactive gambling service": under the IGA, a gambling service provided over the internet, telephone or other communications technology. The Act prohibits providing certain such services (casino-style games, online poker, online in-play betting) to anyone physically in Australia — regardless of where the operator is based. It does not criminalise the player.
What is legal online: sports and racing betting placed before an event begins (pre-match wagering), through an Australian-licensed wagering operator; and online lottery and keno ticket sales (instant-win scratch-style games are excluded). Crucially, the IGA targets operators, not players — an Australian who places a bet on a prohibited offshore online casino commits no offence themselves. That is why enforcement focuses on blocking and prosecuting operators rather than punters.
In-play betting: the phone/online split. A genuinely Australian quirk: you can legally place an in-play (live) bet during a match by telephone or in person at a TAB, but the same live bet placed online or via an app is prohibited. The 2017 amendment closed the "click-to-call" workarounds operators had used to dodge this. It is one of the few places in the world where the channel determines legality.
Which forms of gambling are legal in Australia?
The table below separates the two regimes — the federal online rules (IGA) and the state-licensed land-based forms.
| Form | Legal & licensed? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Land-based pokies (clubs/pubs) | Yes | Licensed per state; WA permits them only in its casino |
| Land-based casinos | Yes | One licensed casino per capital region; state-regulated |
| Lotteries (Powerball, Oz Lotto, etc.) | Yes | Land-based and online sales legal; min age 18 |
| Keno (land-based) | Yes | Legal in venues; online keno to be banned from 2027 |
| Racing & the TAB (totalisator) | Yes | On-course, retail and online; long-established |
| Online sports & racing betting (pre-event) | Yes | Licensed operators only; most hold a Northern Territory licence |
| Online lottery ticket sales | Yes | Permitted; instant scratch-style games excluded |
| Online in-play (live) sports betting | Prohibited online | Legal only by phone/in person; banned online since 2017 |
| Online casinos & online pokies/slots | Prohibited | Roulette, blackjack, craps, slots — banned under the IGA |
| Online poker | Prohibited | Banned under the IGA since the 2017 amendment |
| Credit card / crypto for online wagering | Banned (June 2024) | Lotteries & keno carved out of the credit-card ban |
| Offshore/unlicensed online casinos (incl. crypto) | Illegal to provide to AU | ACMA blocks the sites; players not prosecuted |
Australia has ~3% of the world's pokies and 0.3% of its people. Despite being a mid-sized country, Australia hosts roughly 150,000–180,000 poker machines — an outsized share of the world's pub-and-club gaming machines outside casinos. New South Wales alone runs more pokies than any jurisdiction on the planet outside of Nevada.
How does gambling law differ by state and territory?
Because land-based gambling is a state and territory matter, the same activity can be legal in one place and restricted in another. The most consequential differences sit with the pokies. The Northern Territory plays a special role: it is the jurisdiction where most online corporate bookmakers (Sportsbet, bet365, Ladbrokes, and others) hold their wagering licences, because of its long-standing low-tax, online-friendly licensing regime.
| State / Territory | Regulator | Pokies outside casino? | Casino(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | Liquor & Gaming NSW / ILGA | Yes (most in country) | The Star Sydney; Crown Sydney |
| Victoria | VGCCC | Yes | Crown Melbourne |
| Queensland | Office of Liquor & Gaming Regulation | Yes | Star Gold Coast, Brisbane, others |
| Western Australia | Dept of Racing, Gaming & Liquor / GWC | No — casino only | Crown Perth (only legal pokies in WA) |
| South Australia | Consumer & Business Services / Liquor & Gambling Commissioner | Yes | SkyCity Adelaide |
| Tasmania | Tasmanian Liquor & Gaming Commission | Yes | Wrest Point; Country Club Launceston |
| Australian Capital Territory | ACT Gambling & Racing Commission | Yes (clubs) | Casino Canberra |
| Northern Territory | NT Racing & Wagering Commission / Licensing NT | Yes | Mindil Beach (Darwin); Lasseters (Alice Springs) |
Why your betting app is "based" in Darwin. Almost every major online bookmaker in Australia holds a Northern Territory sports-bookmaker licence, issued by the NT Racing & Wagering Commission. The NT historically charged far lower wagering taxes than other states, so operators clustered there. Customers in every state can bet with them — but states later imposed their own Point of Consumption Tax (POCT), typically 15%–25%, to claw back revenue on bets placed by their residents.
Who regulates gambling in Australia?
There is no single national gambling regulator. Authority is split:
- Online gambling (federal): the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) administers and enforces the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 — investigating complaints, issuing warnings, blocking illegal offshore sites, and overseeing the credit-card/crypto ban and the BetStop self-exclusion register. The Australian Federal Police can pursue criminal matters under the Act.
- Land-based gambling (state/territory): eight separate regulators — Liquor & Gaming NSW (with the Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority), Victoria's VGCCC, Queensland's Office of Liquor & Gaming Regulation, and equivalents in WA, SA, Tasmania, the ACT and NT — each licensing pokies, casinos, lotteries, keno and racing in its own jurisdiction.
- Anti-money-laundering: AUSTRAC oversees AML/CTF compliance across casinos, bookmakers and digital-currency exchanges.
The Crown and Star money-laundering scandals. Between 2021 and 2024, royal commissions and inquiries in Victoria, NSW and WA found Crown Resorts and The Star casinos had enabled money laundering and failed AML controls. AUSTRAC pursued record civil penalties — Crown agreed to a A$450 million penalty (Federal Court, 2023) and The Star to A$300 million (2024) — among the largest financial-crime penalties in Australian corporate history, and a direct driver of the tougher 2024–2026 reforms.
How did Australian gambling law evolve? A timeline
The federal online framework was built on top of much older state regimes, then progressively tightened.
- 2001 The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 passes — the cornerstone federal law. It prohibits providing online casino-style gambling to people in Australia, while leaving online sports betting (pre-event) and lotteries permitted.
- 2017 The Interactive Gambling Amendment Act 2017 closes the in-play "click-to-call" loophole, explicitly bans online poker, and tightens the regime. Several major offshore operators (including 888poker and PokerStars for AU customers) withdraw from the market.
- 2019 ACMA begins its website-blocking scheme, ordering internet providers to block illegal offshore gambling sites for the first time (first request November 2019).
- 2023 BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, launches (21 August 2023) — one step to exclude from all ~150 licensed online/phone wagering providers. The Murphy Report parliamentary inquiry into online gambling harm is tabled, recommending sweeping ad and harm reforms.
- 2024 The credit card and digital-currency ban for online wagering takes effect (11 June 2024) under the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit and Other Measures) Act 2023.
- 2025 States tighten land-based rules: from 1 January 2025, NSW requires ATMs/EFTPOS to sit at least 5 metres from gaming-room entrances and mandates Responsible Gambling Officers in larger venues. Victoria advances mandatory carded play for pokies.
- 2026 On 2 April 2026 the government releases its response to the Murphy Report: a major gambling-advertising crackdown, an online keno ban, and a mandatory review of the credit/crypto ban beginning June 2026. Most measures take effect 1 January 2027.
What is the June 2024 credit card and crypto ban?
One of the most significant recent reforms. Under the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit and Other Measures) Act 2023, from 11 June 2024 it became a criminal offence for online and telephone wagering operators to accept payment for bets via:
- Credit cards
- Credit-related products (e.g. some digital wallets drawing on credit, certain BNPL)
- Digital currency — i.e. cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin
The change brought online wagering into line with land-based gambling, where credit-card use was already barred. According to the Department of Infrastructure (which administers gambling policy) and the ACMA, the ban applies to almost all online wagering, with a carve-out: customers can still use credit cards to buy online lottery and keno tickets. The measure has extraterritorial reach — it applies to any operator taking bets from Australians, wherever based — and breaches carry penalties of up to roughly A$234,750. The ACMA oversees compliance, and a mandatory review of the ban's effectiveness is due to begin in June 2026.
Can you gamble with crypto or Bitcoin in Australia?
Not with a licensed Australian operator. Since 11 June 2024, digital currency — including Bitcoin — cannot legally be used to fund online wagering with any operator serving Australians. Combined with the IGA's existing ban on online casinos and online poker, this means domestic crypto gambling is effectively prohibited end to end: the casino games are illegal to provide, and the crypto payment rail is illegal to accept.
What remains is a grey market of offshore crypto casinos (typically licensed in Curaçao or Anjouan) that Australians can still physically reach. Providing those services to Australians is illegal under the IGA, but — as with all the prohibited online forms — the player who uses them commits no offence. The ACMA's response is to block the sites at the ISP level rather than prosecute individuals. Separately, AUSTRAC regulates Australian digital-currency exchanges for anti-money-laundering purposes, and in 2025 it escalated enforcement and investigations across crypto businesses — part of the wider squeeze on the on-ramps that fund offshore play.
"Offshore crypto casino" = no protections. Because these sites are unlicensed in Australia, none of the consumer safeguards apply: no BetStop self-exclusion, no Australian dispute resolution, no AML oversight of the operator, and no guarantee of payout. They are explicitly illegal to provide to Australians and are routinely targeted by ACMA blocking. Reaching one via a VPN does not make it legal for the operator.
How does ACMA block illegal offshore sites?
Since November 2019, the ACMA has operated a website-blocking scheme: when it finds an illegal offshore gambling or affiliate site serving Australians, it asks internet service providers to block access. The program has scaled up sharply. By late 2025, ACMA reported having blocked well over 1,300 illegal gambling and affiliate websites, and around 220 illegal operators have pulled out of the Australian market since stricter enforcement began in 2017.
ACMA enforcement against illegal online gambling (cumulative)
ACMA's enforcement runs in a steady cadence — in the second quarter of 2025 alone it received 330 complaints, investigated 292, opened 20 investigations and identified 73 law-breaking sites; it then referred 71 sites for blocking in the third quarter. The agency publishes these figures quarterly, making Australia one of the more transparent enforcement regimes in the world.
What are the 2026–2027 gambling-advertising reforms?
The biggest looming change. After years of pressure following the 2023 Murphy Report (the late MP Peta Murphy's parliamentary inquiry into online gambling harm), the federal government released its formal response on 2 April 2026. It stopped short of a total advertising ban but announced a sweeping crackdown, with most measures slated to begin 1 January 2027:
- TV: a ban on wagering ads during live sport on free-to-air TV between 6am and 8:30pm, plus a cap of three wagering ads per hour per channel in the restricted window.
- Radio: bans during school drop-off (8–9am) and pick-up (3–4pm) hours.
- Venues & uniforms: a ban on wagering ads inside sports stadiums and on players' and officials' uniforms.
- Tactics: bans on using celebrities and on promoting betting odds in ads.
- Online "triple lock": gambling ads on digital platforms only shown to users who are signed in, verified over 18, and given an opt-out.
- Online keno ban: online keno — criticised as "pocket pokies" allowing rapid, high-spend play — to be banned entirely.
- BetStop strengthened and the credit/crypto ban reviewed (from June 2026).
No new national regulator. Despite the Murphy Report's recommendation, the government's April 2026 response declined to create a single national online gambling regulator or ombudsman, keeping enforcement split between the ACMA federally and the eight state/territory regulators. Public-health advocates criticised this and the absence of a blanket ad ban as falling short of the inquiry's intent.
What is the minimum gambling age in Australia?
The minimum age is 18 for all forms of gambling — pokies, casinos, lotteries, keno, racing and online wagering — in every state and territory and under the federal IGA. There is no 16-and-up carve-out for lotteries as exists in some countries. Licensed operators (land-based and online) must verify a customer's age, and supplying gambling to a minor is an offence under both state laws and the operators' licence conditions.
How is gambling taxed in Australia?
As in the UK, players pay no tax on gambling winnings — winnings are generally not treated as taxable income, because gambling is not considered a profession or trade for ordinary punters. The tax burden falls on operators and bettors via the operators, through state-levied gaming taxes on pokies and casinos, lottery duties, and the Point of Consumption Tax (POCT) on online wagering.
Because online bookmakers are mostly licensed in the low-tax Northern Territory, every other state introduced its own POCT to capture revenue from bets placed by its residents. POCT rates vary by state, typically in the 15%–25% range on net wagering revenue. Pokies remain the single largest source of state gambling-tax revenue nationally.
Where to get help
If gambling is becoming a problem for you or someone you know, free, confidential help is available across Australia. Gambling Help Online and the National Gambling Helpline are on 1800 858 858, 24 hours a day. BetStop (betstop.gov.au), the National Self-Exclusion Register, lets you exclude yourself from all ~150 licensed online and phone wagering providers in a single free step — for a minimum of 3 months up to a lifetime. As of 30 September 2025, more than 49,000 people had registered with BetStop since its 2023 launch. Each state and territory also runs its own gambling-help services.
Frequently asked questions
Is online gambling legal in Australia?
Partly. Online sports and racing betting placed before an event begins, and online lottery ticket sales, are legal through licensed operators. But online casinos, online slots/pokies, online poker and in-play (live) online betting are prohibited under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001. The law targets operators, not players.
Are online casinos legal in Australia?
No. Providing an online casino — roulette, blackjack, online pokies, online poker and similar games — to a person in Australia is prohibited under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001. Offshore sites that still take Australian customers are operating illegally and are blocked by the ACMA.
Can I get in trouble for using an offshore gambling site in Australia?
No. The Interactive Gambling Act penalises operators, not players. An individual in Australia who gambles on a prohibited offshore site does not commit an offence. Enforcement focuses on blocking the sites and penalising the operators.
Can I use Bitcoin or crypto to gamble in Australia?
Not with any operator serving Australians. Since 11 June 2024, it has been illegal to fund online wagering with digital currency such as Bitcoin, or with credit cards. Combined with the ban on online casinos, domestic crypto gambling is effectively prohibited. Only offshore, unlicensed sites still take crypto, and those are illegal to provide to Australians.
What is the legal gambling age in Australia?
18, for all forms of gambling, in every state and territory.
Why is in-play betting legal by phone but not online?
The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits placing in-play (live) bets online, but allows the same bets by telephone or in person. A 2017 amendment closed the "click-to-call" apps operators used to get around this, so live betting during a match must now genuinely be by phone or at a venue.
Who regulates gambling in Australia?
Online gambling is regulated federally by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001. Land-based gambling is regulated by each state and territory — for example Liquor & Gaming NSW, Victoria's VGCCC, and Queensland's Office of Liquor & Gaming Regulation. AUSTRAC handles anti-money-laundering.
Do you pay tax on gambling winnings in Australia?
No. Gambling winnings are not taxed for ordinary players in Australia, because gambling is not treated as a profession. Tax is levied on operators, including state gaming taxes and the Point of Consumption Tax on online wagering.
Sources
- ACMA — About the Interactive Gambling Act
- ACMA — Action on interactive gambling (quarterly enforcement reports)
- ACMA — Credit and digital currency ban
- ACMA — BetStop National Self-Exclusion Register
- ACMA — BetStop statistics, Q1 2025–2026
- Dept of Infrastructure — Credit card ban
- Wikipedia — Interactive Gambling Act 2001
- Wikipedia — Gambling in Australia
- ICLG — Gambling Laws and Regulations: Australia 2026
- iGaming Business — Australian gambling reforms after the Murphy Report (April 2026)
- iGaming Today — Australia's Murphy Report response: keno ban & ad restrictions
- iGaming Today — ACMA illegal gambling site blocks
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare — Gambling
- Covers — Australia enacts credit card ban for online gambling (June 2024)
- NT.GOV.AU — Bookmaker and betting exchange licences
- Parliament of Australia — Gambling advertising policy brief
See also: Gambling in Australia: Statistics & Trends (2026).