“We have a lot of players around the world.” “Yes, we do have a licence in Australia,” he said. He said Australian customers were welcome. Estimates of the revenue reaped by online gambling operators in the Asia-Pacific vary from about US$50bn ($65bn) to more than US$70bn ($90bn), and the popularity of betting on the web surged among Australians during last year’s coronavirus lockdowns, according to government research.īut investigating the casinos is made more difficult because they do not disclose their ownership and most shield the registration of their websites behind protection services offered by internet infrastructure company Cloudflare – used by nine of the 10 gambling sites examined by the Guardian.Ī man who answered Two Up Casino’s Australian phone number said the casino was located in Curaçao. The sites are competing for a slice of a potentially very lucrative pie.
Providing an unlicensed online gambling service to Australians is a crime that can attract a fine of up to $1.1m a day under the Interactive Gambling Act (IGA). Six of the casinos also advertised local contact phone numbers, although four rang out and one went to an answering machine when the Guardian called this week.Īll 10 casinos were marketed through website, which describes itself as the “No.
