Our investigations
As part of our 2023–24 compliance priority of minimising gambling harm, we investigated illegal offshore wagering providers that targeted Australians during the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This event took place in Australia and New Zealand between 20 July and 20 August 2023.
What we did
In the lead-up to, and during the event, we reviewed over 200 offshore wagering services.
We identified offshore services which appeared to provide wagering on sporting events, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup, to Australians without an appropriate licence issued by an Australian state or territory.
We identified these services through:
- complaints we received
- intelligence provided by our stakeholders including state and territory regulators, responsible gambling bodies and licensed wagering operators
- online news and publications.
We analysed website traffic to each of the services during the FIFA Women’s World Cup and prioritised those with the most Australian traffic for investigation.
We identified 21 of these services to investigate if they broke the rules set out in the Interactive Gambling Act 2001.
We found that the majority of these services also provided casino style games and/or online in-play betting, both of which are prohibited under the Interactive Gambling Act. These services cannot be licensed in Australia.
Our results – 21 investigations
Of the 21 services we investigated, we found:
- 3 services (14%) did not break the interactive gambling rules
- 18 services (86%) broke interactive gambling rules.
After being notified of our preliminary finding, 3 of the 18 services restricted access to Australian end-users. We issued the remaining 15 services with formal warnings. When they continued to break the rules, we requested participating ISPs to block access to their websites.
We continue to investigate and take action against illegal offshore wagering providers targeting Australians.