Many folks are up in arms in Australia these days over the government’s conduct in regard to Internet gambling. The State Government has recently made a subtle shift in its attitude toward online gambling and the anti-gambling campaigners have gotten quite upset.

After a long time spent worrying about the online gambling operator Betfair, the government has changed its tune and has gone so far as to offer its own license to construct an operation that is quite similar to the Tasmanian-based company.

Betfair was the very first betting exchange to be licensed within Australia. Conducted over the Internet, the operation is set up to work like the sharemarket in the sense that punters bet against each other and there is no bookmaker or tote acting as a middleman. Since their beginnings in 2006, Betfair has changed the atmosphere of the racing industry because punters can bet on horses to lose. This has increased the incentive to fix races from time to time and everyone is increasingly worried about this potential phenomenon.

Earlier this year, Western Australia lost a battle in the High Court to block Betfair from that state and ever since, other states that may have objected have had to grin and bear it and accept the website’s presence. People who were remarkably concerned about the possibilities of seeing fixed races become common practice have had their fears assuaged somewhat since Betfair has a squeaky clean record of complete transparency. Folks who oppose internet gambling are still calling for a ban against all advertisements for the new betting exchange but the Gaming Minister has rejected that idea.

Tags: Australia, Betfair, Online Gambling

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 1:22 am and is filed under Online Gambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.