Amid a significant push from the federal government to place more stringent measures on gambling, Australian betting enthusiasts will be given the power to choose to ban themselves from August.
Australian Betting Self-Exclusion Register
The state of play across the Australian betting landscape is changing rapidly, with the federal government imposing new measures such as preventing online gamblers from using credit cards, as well as a push from legislators to introduce a blanket ban on gambling advertisement.
The latest development has been five years in the making, and will allow bettors in Australia to decide if they want to enact a self-imposed ban on all bookmakers across each of the nation’s six states.
The national self-exclusion register, or ‘BetStop’ as it will be known, will officially launch at the end of August.
The initial building blocks of the legislation were set in motion back in 2018, when the then-communications minister Paul Fletcher was lobbied by a recovering gambling addict. The man took it upon himself to self-exclude from as many as 75 online bookmakers, but was constantly contacted by new operators popping up across Australia.
The current communications minister, Michelle Rowland, will launch BetStop at Parliament House on Monday.
As mentioned, an inquiry’s recommendation to ban all gambling advertisements is also still be considered by Rowland.
Upon the launch of BetStop, Rowland said: “The launch of Australia’s first national self-exclusion register, BetStop, is a game changer, and will make it easy for vulnerable consumers to self-exclude from online wagering services.
“BetStop is the last of 10 measures to be implemented under the National Consumer Protection Framework for online wagering to empower Australians through stronger consumer protections.”
BetStop will require gambling operators to first verify a person’s identity before they take their wager, in order to prevent problem gamblers from creating an alias before they are confirmed to be who they said they are.
