The gambling regulator for the Australian state New South Wales is cracking down on online gambling advertisements.
The state’s Office of Liquor Gaming & racing has brought advertising charges against operators’ Tabcorp, Crownbet, bet365 and Unibet.
The regulator has followed that up with a warning that it will not tolerate illegal online gaming promotions in New South Wales.
The OLGR introduced new advertising standards for the state earlier this year, with larger fines for violations. According to reports, the regulator is targeting ads that advertise bonuses, free bets or free money.
Last month, the OLGR charge Ladbrokes a 25,000 Australian dollar fine for public promotion of its “Daily Free Bet Challenge.”
Anthony Keon OLGR Director of Compliance & Enforcement said the OLGR is tracking advertising on all mediums and that it would charge any operator found in breach of its policy regarding consumer inducements, according to SBC News.
As for the new group of companies charged, Tabcorp released a statement saying it will challenge the OLGR ruling.
In another matter, Australian government officials have been seeking to block illegal online betting company’s sites from operating in the country by asking online providers to install web filtering to block the illegal sites.
But a group of online providers including Twitter, Facebook and Google sent a submission to the government that blocking such sites would be impossible for them.
“We consider there to be fundamental flaws and significant practical difficulties with any attempts to filter the Internet such that it may not be possible to automatically block content. Who would determine whether a service is illegal and would entire websites be blocked if there are both legal and illegal services on the website?” the companies said in a joint submission to the government under their Digital Industry Group association.
