- Australian Senator Dr Richard Di Natale believes that Apple has “an obligation to take down apps that are against Australian law.”
- Last month the Australian government released a study recommending regulating online gambling as part of a consumer protection initiative.
- Online poker and gambling are available across Australia without restriction.
Australian Senator Dr Richard Di Natale has continued his opposition to unlicensed online gambling by calling for Apple’s App Store to take down the PokerStars mobile app which was launched last May.
“We don’t allow online poker in Australia for Australian people under the Interactive Gambling Act,” Di Natale stated. He also believes that Apple has “an obligation to take down apps that are against Australian law.”
Dr Di Natale is a Greens’ Federal spokesperson for Gambling and is in favor of tightly restricted licensing laws that would permit online gambling in what he sees as its least harmful forms. He would permit online poker tournaments, but not cash games.
The PokerStars Mobile App, available in various regional App Stores for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, allows for both play money and real money online poker. It is also available on Android devices as a direct download.
Last month the Australian government released a study recommending the regulation of online gambling as part of a consumer protection initiative, but the the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) rejected further recommendations to legalize online poker tournaments right away.
The recently published “Review of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (IGA)” concluded that the existing law “may in fact be exacerbating the risk of harm because of the high level of usage by Australians of prohibited services which may not have the same protections that Australian licensed online gambling providers could be required to have.”
In advance of proposing such a licensing system the Government announced that it first needs to establish a common set of “harm reduction measures” across all of Australia’s States and Territories. This process is expected to take several years.
Online poker and gambling are available across Australia without restriction as the IGA does not include any effective measures to enforce its anti-online gambling provisions.
