South Australia’s gambling tax highlights 'regulatory mess' of online betting

[The Buzz]

Interesting article from TheConversation.com about the South Australian government announcing that it will introduce a “point-of-consumption tax” to earn back some of the gambling tax revenue it is seeing disappear over the border.

The new tax is a reasonable response to a growing problem, and probably won’t send bookmakers to the wall. But it does highlight the current regulatory mess surrounding how we tax internet wagering in Australia.

The Northern Territory (NT) has become home to most of Australia’s internet bookies, thanks to a low-tax regime and relatively loose regulation. There are 18 internet bookies registered in the NT, including William Hill, CrownBet, bet365 and Ladbrokes. They get most of their revenue from other states – including SA.

They also don’t pay a lot of tax. In 2014-15, with total wagering expenditure of A$937.6 million, the NT government collected taxes amounting to a little over A$10 million. That’s a bit less than 1.1% of the money gamblers lost. So, it’s easy to see why the bookies like the NT.The SA government has decided to try to get a slice of that action, or to dissuade the bookies from marketing their wares into the state – or perhaps a bit of both.

Here's a story about how the new law will affect one man who makes his living as an online poker player: http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/losing-hand-changes-to-online-gambling-laws-to-force-poker-players-out/news-story/65230ec4e5f04806554d6c580927befb

While some of the top guys will make six figures in a given year, Jared is a “mid-stakes” player and expects to make anywhere between $30,000 and $60,000 a year playing online tournaments.

Without any solid working background, Jared in unsure about what sort of employment he will be able to find.

“I’ll have to start at the bottom,” he said. “I didn’t have a very good life before I started playing poker, I didn’t really have too much direction. Poker actually gave me something to work towards,” he said.

Here is a link to the entire article from TheConversation.com: http://theconversation.com/south-australias-gambling-tax-highlights-the-regulatory-mess-of-online-betting-72495