Australia Bans Lottery Betting Websites

Yesterday Australia's parliament voted in favor of banning online lottery betting, which lets punters wager on international lotteries.

The blacklisting of the sites won't take place until January 1st, 2019, but will see any sites that offer the bets having to cut them out, at least to Aussies. The government was spurred to act by pubs, clubs, and other spots that sell traditional lottery tickets, as they feared losing out on sales due to the sites.

One of the biggest companies to be affected is Lottoland, which has an Australian branch. The company said that they will continue operating, albeit without the traditional lottery betting that it's known for. Company CEO Luke Brill spoke about the vote, revealing: "As you would expect, Lottoland Australia is well advanced in looking at other ways we can continue to deliver choice to the 700,000 Australians who have registered with us over the past two years.

"It is a great pity that the Senate did not give due consideration of the unintended consequences the new laws will have - not just on our customers, but on competition and innovation.

"As we have said from the very beginning, the legislation is bad news for Australian newsagents, too, which will now be at the mercy of a huge, money-hungry monopoly in the form of Tatts Group, now owned by Tabcorp."

"But this decision does not mean the end of Lottoland Australia - far from it.

"We are here to stay, and will continue to innovate and adapt so that we can continue to provide our customers with the type of exciting and innovative products they have come to expect from us over the past two years.

"Our lottery betting products will continue to be available for at least another six months, as stipulated in the legislation."

The move comes as Australia has been clamping down on gambling, having pushed out many reputable betting sites and causing an influx of offshore sites that put Australian punters at risk. We'll be following this story and will update readers as we learn more.