ACMA’s offshore headache – As Australian wagering declines, the grey market continues to boom

The Australian federal government is well aware of the threat posed by unregulated overseas gambling operators, but as Bren O’Brien discusses, the federal body charged with policing the issue remains largely powerless to stop the flow of money.

In the two years since the You Win Some, You Lose More report was released, one of the 31 recommendations put forward by the federal parliamentary committee chaired by the late Peta Murphy, has captured 99 per cent of the media attention.

But beyond the phased introduction of gambling advertising bans, the report identified several other important recommendations relating to how wagering is regulated and the threat posed by offshore wagering operators.

Recommendation 3 related to the establishment of a dedicated national regulator, Recommendation 24 the appointment of a national ombudsman and Recommendation 7, to increasing the government’s power to block and punish illegal overseas operators.             

The body charged with the majority of federal government regulation of gambling is the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which is empowered chiefly under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001.

ACMA deals with the enforcement of no less than seven federal acts, relating to broadcasting, telecommunications, spam, the Do Not Call Register, as well as gambling.

It has had a busy first half of 2025 when it comes to the last of those subject areas.

In the space of the past seven weeks, it has levied fines of $4 million on Tabcorp, $1 million on Unibet and $500,000 on PointsBet over breaches of laws regarding either self-exclusion, spam, or both.

Four more Australian licensed businesses, Buddybet, UltraBet, VicBet and TopBet were hit with either court-enforceable undertakings or formal warnings for similar breaches.

At the same time, ACMA has also been busy keeping up with its international obligations. In the past two months, it sent formal warnings to two Curacao-based unregulated outfits, operating under the names casiny.com and coinpoker.com, for offering services to Australian-based clients. Both had their domains blocked to Australian users.

The parent companies of at least one of these companies are no strangers to warnings on ACMA letterheads, having received correspondence multiple times before.  

In May, ACMA also launched an investigation into the Australian-based marketing activities of the Polymarket platform, a global prediction market also unregulated in Australia but with a big and growing international footprint.

It also issued a statement last month warning influencers about promoting these unregulated providers, after Polymarket was accused of using Australians to market its federal election offering via social media. It matched US$4 million on the outcome.

Given the breadth of ACMA’s regulatory responsibilities, it is not surprising that the You Win Some, You Lose More committee suggested it needed some more help doing its job, particularly when it came to unregulated, international markets.    

An ACMA member admitted in 2022 that tackling this unregulated aspect of the gambling landscape was difficult, and enforcement of the Interactive Gambling Act internationally was largely about disincentivising those who wanted to target the Australian market.

“We regulate in a dynamic digital market which by its nature crosses international borders. This environment creates a number of challenges. For example, services are able to operate under high levels of anonymity and change their digital footprints quickly and often,” then ACMA Member, Fiona Cameron, told the Regulating The Game conference in 2022.

“There are jurisdictional challenges as many of the illegal services we investigate are based in jurisdictions with minimal, if any, regulatory oversight and more recently, there has been an increase in the use of cryptocurrency on many illegal sites, which creates additional challenges in our investigations.”

ACMA confirmed in 2023 that it estimated that around $1.6 billion was spent in the unregulated gambling market by Australians. That is around 15 per cent of the total gambling market in Australia.

Since that point, these operators have become increasingly sophisticated, especially in marketing, and utilise cryptocurrency in order to aid the covert nature and growth of their operations.

Notably, a 2022 study by the Asian Racing Federation found that 73 per cent of the unlicensed and unregulated sites it reviewed featured Australian racing as a product. It was the most represented of all racing jurisdictions.

Responsible Wagering Australia. a lobby group for regulated operators within Australia, commissioned a study in 2023 which estimated that as much as $1.6 billion in racing and sports product fees and $1.3 billion in taxes would be lost over the five years between 2022 and 2027 due to the unregulated market.    

Of course, two of the world’s largest unregulated global operators are primarily run out of Australia. Stake.com and Shuffle.com have their main offices within a kilometre of one another in Melbourne.

Both are unable, under the IGA, to offer their services to Australian customers and there is no evidence they are doing so, but both have been in the spotlight of late.

The ABC reported this week that Shuffle’s weekly lotto was conducted from its Melbourne HQ, while a promotion featuring players on Shuffle’s games was also filmed from its office.

The new generation of Australian gambling entrepreneurs are bold and brash and they are unnerving the establishment. They have innovated and grown quickly.

Stake, headed by Australia’s youngest billionaire, Ed Craven, as well as Bijan Tehrani, is now estimated to be the fourth-largest gambling company in the world.

Significantly, it is moving more and more of its business into the regulated market across the world, exiting its unregulated presence in the UK this week. Its Easygo parent company holds 5 per cent share in PointsBet, and Craven has been linked with a move into the licensed Australian market.  

It is a well-trodden path, with several of the world’s biggest regulated operators now having had, somewhere in their past, a connection with grey market gambling operators.

Stake is, though, still unavailable to Australian users. Neither is Shuffle, which generates well over $1 billion a month. Both are registered in Curacao, neighbours to the companies that ACMA has been sending warning letters.   

A simple VPN, however, allows you to see what is on offer, with Aussie racing front and centre on Stake, accessed through the likes of the Philippines, Kenya, Nigeria or wherever else takes your fancy.

Shuffle doesn’t offer Australian racing, but it clearly recognises the overlap between those who bet on racing and those who dabble in their preferred currency.

“I do think there’s an overlap between people who historically love racing and the crypto in terms of the appetite, high frequency, that type of betting,” Australian-based then Shuffle executive Ishan Haque said earlier this year.

“I do think there’s some overlap there. And I will say there’s probably also another large opportunity.

“Crypto operators historically haven’t offered great sports betting products in general. It’s always been casino-first. I still look at, you know, the Aus bookies and some of the products from the traditional space.”

Casinos and slot games have been the domain of these overseas operators, but sports books and racing are clearly an opportunity. Polymarket is already tapping into that.

That puts an interesting shade on the current decline in wagering in Australia. At least some of this leakage is due to these overseas markets. While Stake and Shuffle are adamant they are not breaking the law and offering services to Australians, there are plenty of others who seem willing to.

ACMA’s figures say it has blocked over 1000 illegal overseas affiliates and betting websites since 2019, but by its own admission has been largely playing regulatory ‘whack-a mole’. One disappears only to re-emerge elsewhere.

The challenges posed by these grey-market operators, not only to taxation and revenue but also to aspects such as consumer protection and anti-money laundering, were given more prominence in the ‘You Win Some, You Lose More’ report than the advertising ban.

But two years later, while ACMA is ramping up its compliance on those who are licensed in Australia, it still seems disempowered when it comes to stopping the flow of gambling money out of the country.