Significant support is growing to legalize live online sports betting in Australia, which is banned online but not via other forms of betting.
Live betting occurs after a sporting event has started but before it concludes, and provides many betting options, including changing lines and totals, as a particular contest is played out.
Australia’s Interactive Gaming Act allows live betting on sports via TABs and mobile phones, but not online, and that has many supporting a change in the law, so that bettors can wager online. Among those known to support legalization of live sports betting online include the Australian Sports Commission, several board members for state-based casino regulators, Crownbet, and the free-to-air industry.
Proponents hope to boost gaming revenues and cite a European study showing as much as 75 percent of all sports betting on an event occurs after that event has started.
Opposing the move is the National Integrity of Sport Unit (NISU), and others, who say sports betting of all types, but particularly unregulated sports betting, deteriorates the integrity of sports around the globe. Unregulated sports wagering corrupts the outcomes of sporting events, and any changes only should come with strong anti-corruption measures in place.
Some opponents also are concerned with the potential for an increase in problem gambling if live online sports betting were legalized in Australia, where bettors wagered $2.75 billion of $4.6 billion via online wagering systems in 2013-2014, the NISU reported.
