The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has blasted offshore gambling websites that have resorted to increasingly predatory tactics to secure customers in the country, the Guardian reported, citing the watchdog.
ACMA sounds alarm over offshore operators targeting vulnerable players
According to ACMA, offshore gambling websites are shifting their strategy to now target gamblers specifically excluded by BetStop, the federal self-exclusion registry for vulnerable gamblers, which has more than 44,000 registrants at this point, based on information from the regulator’s website.
However, ACMA believes there is a significant interest in these gamblers by offshore companies that seek to exploit their vulnerability to generate revenue. While offshore websites are banned from targeting Australian residents, thousands still do, with ACMA’s own dedicated blacklist growing month after month, but it is unable to limit the access of those rogue operators.
"This is a deeply concerning and opportunistic practice that attempts to undermine the purpose of the national self-exclusion register," ACMA said in a statement to the media. ACMA’s efforts to limit this behavior by issuing bans and warnings to overseas entities are hamstrung by the fact that the regulator simply lacks jurisdiction.
Websites based in Curacao, but lately in other emerging markets, with a patchy commitment to player safety, are not beholden to domestic rules in Australia. ACMA has been working to liaise with counterparts in other jurisdiction’s including Curacao’s own gambling regulator, and has websites held responsible for engaging in what it deems illegal practices.
Targeting BetStop registrants is predatory, to say the least
ACMA also needs to be empowered, believes Nerilee Hing, a professor at CQUniversity, who studies affiliate marketing in the gambling industry, and believes that the watchdog should be given teeth to bite into that particular part of the industry, shuttering those networks and making it harder for them to target consumers.
Targeting vulnerable consumers is not uniquely limited to Australia, either. In the United Kingdom, for example, searches for "websites not on GamStop" (the equivalent of BetStop) have been exploited by affiliate marketing companies who have not hesitated to promote those operators, very likely at the detriment of vulnerable players.
