Is online gambling legal in Australia? The law explained

Is online gambling legal in Australia? Partly. Sports betting, race betting and lotteries are licensed by the states and territories and operate legally online. Online casino games — pokies, blackjack, roulette, live dealer — are a different matter: the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 makes it an offence to provide them to people in Australia, and no operator can be licensed to do so. The Act aims squarely at operators and advertisers. It does not make an offence of playing, and no Australian has been prosecuted for having an account at an offshore casino.

That leaves a real situation rather than a tidy one: sites licensed in Curaçao, Anjouan or elsewhere accept Australian players, the Australian Communications and Media Authority asks internet providers to block their domains, new domains appear, and the player sits in the middle with money on an account and no Australian regulator to appeal to. The pages below take each part of that apart. This is general information, not legal advice — for your own circumstances, speak to a lawyer.

• AACMA blocked gambling sites: how blocking works
• AAre gambling winnings taxed in Australia?
• OOffshore online casino Australia: licences explained
• TThe Interactive Gambling Act 2001 in plain English

The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 in one paragraph

The Act was passed to stop online casino games being offered into Australia. Section 15 prohibits providing a “prohibited interactive gambling service” to a customer physically present here. The 2017 amendments — which commenced in September that year — closed the gaps: they added a prohibition on providing a regulated interactive gambling service without a licence, introduced civil penalties alongside the criminal offence, gave ACMA enforcement powers it had previously lacked, and ended the “click to call” workaround for in-play sports betting. Part 7A prohibits advertising prohibited and unlicensed services. The full text sits on legislation.gov.au, and we walk through the provisions in plain English on our Interactive Gambling Act page.

What is legal, and what is not

Activity	Status in Australia
Online sports and race betting with a licensed Australian bookmaker	Legal
Online lotteries and keno sold by a licensed operator	Legal
Pokies in a licensed pub, club or casino venue	Legal, regulated by each state or territory
An offshore site offering online casino games to Australians	Prohibited under s.15 — the operator commits the offence
Advertising a prohibited or unlicensed service	Prohibited under Part 7A
In-play betting placed online during a match	Not permitted online; allowed by telephone or in person
A resident playing at an offshore casino	Not an offence for the player; no Australian consumer protection applies

State and territory law is a separate layer. The Interactive Gambling Act is Commonwealth law and deals with online services. Everything physical — the pokies in your local club, venue licensing, machine numbers, opening hours, cash input limits, mandatory closure periods — is regulated by each state and territory, and the rules differ sharply. New South Wales has by far the most machines in venues; Western Australia allows them only at its single Perth casino. None of this changes the online position, but it explains why “pokies are legal in Australia” and “online pokies are not licensed in Australia” are both accurate sentences.

Where the player actually stands

Two things are true at once, and most sites in this niche only tell you one of them. The first: you are not committing an offence. The Act creates liability for the person providing the service, not the person using it, and there is no provision under which a player is penalised. The second: you have no protection. If an offshore operator voids your winnings, changes bonus terms after the fact, or simply stops replying, there is no Australian regulator with jurisdiction, no ombudsman, and no realistic route through the courts for an ordinary sum. Your only leverage is the operator’s own complaints process and, if it holds one, its licensing body — a chain we assess for each site in our rating method.

That is the honest frame for everything else on this site. We review operators that are not licensed in Australia, we say so on every page, and we treat licence quality, payout behaviour and verification practice as the things that actually matter when there is no regulator behind you.

ACMA, blocking and the mirror-domain cycle

Since 2019 ACMA has been able to ask Australian internet providers to block domains offering prohibited services, and more than a thousand sites have been blocked since. The mechanism is DNS-level and imperfect: the operator registers a new domain, sometimes numbered in sequence, and the cycle restarts. ACMA also issues formal warnings, refers matters for civil penalty proceedings, notifies overseas regulators and can have directors placed on the Movement Alert List.

For a player, the consequence that matters is practical rather than legal: a blocked domain can leave you unable to reach an account that still holds your money. What to do in that situation — and why we do not tell you to reach for a VPN — is covered on our ACMA blocked casinos page. Complaints about illegal gambling services can be made directly to ACMA.

Tax on winnings

Australia does not tax the gambling winnings of a recreational player. The reasoning is that gambling is treated as a pastime rather than a business, so the proceeds are not assessable income and losses are not deductible. The exception is narrow enough that it almost never applies to an individual: someone genuinely carrying on a business of gambling. Cryptocurrency adds a separate wrinkle, because coin is a capital gains tax asset in its own right. We set out the detail, the ATO position and the records worth keeping on our tax on winnings page.

Help, limits and self-exclusion

BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, launched in August 2023 and lets you exclude yourself from every licensed Australian online and phone wagering service at once. Be clear about its scope: it covers licensed wagering operators, so an offshore casino is not part of it and will not receive your registration. That gap is real and worth knowing before you rely on it. Offshore sites usually offer their own account-level self-exclusion and deposit limits — weaker, but not nothing.

Free, confidential support is available 24 hours a day through Gambling Help Online on 1800 858 858, and you can register at betstop.gov.au. Our responsible gambling page collects the practical tools, including bank-level blocks and device filters. Gambling is 18+ everywhere in Australia.

Reading the rest of this site

If you are going to play offshore anyway, the useful questions are which licence an operator holds and what it is worth, how it handles verification and payouts, and what happens when a domain is blocked. Start with offshore casinos for how to read a licence, then the sites we review — every one of them operating outside the Australian licensing system.

Show all casinos

Offshore casinos are not licensed in Australia. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 targets operators, not players. 18+. Gambling Help Online 1800 858 858. We earn a commission when you sign up through our links. It costs you nothing and does not change the ranking — see how we rate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are online pokies legal in Australia?

They are not licensed here. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits providing online casino games, including pokies, to people in Australia, and there is no licence an operator can apply for. Pokies in licensed venues are legal and are regulated by each state and territory.

Can I get in trouble for playing at an offshore casino?

The Act creates offences for operators and advertisers, not for players, and no Australian has been prosecuted for playing. What you lose is protection rather than liberty: no Australian regulator can help you recover a disputed balance.

Why can I still open these sites if they are prohibited?

Because the operators are outside Australian jurisdiction. ACMA asks internet providers to block domains, which works until the operator registers a new one. Enforcement reaches the domain, not the company.

Do I pay tax on gambling winnings in Australia?

Not as a recreational player — winnings are not assessable income and losses are not deductible. The rare exception is someone carrying on a genuine business of gambling. Crypto is a separate question because it is a capital gains tax asset.

Does BetStop cover offshore casinos?

No. BetStop applies to licensed Australian online and phone wagering services. Offshore casinos are not part of the register, so self-exclusion there has to be requested from the operator directly, alongside bank blocks and device-level filters.