Investigación de mercado

The traditional State-based regulation of wagering has been significantly weakened as the industry has grown both nationally and internationally. The Commonwealth has taken limited steps in legislating, leaving most regulatory responsibility with the individual States and Territories. The industry has responded to threats of increased regulation by developing and strengthening voluntary codes of practice. Likewise, broadcasters and advertisers have taken steps to strengthen their voluntary codes.

The development of gambling laws has focused on protection of revenue, eliminating criminal influence and responsible gambling issues, following a different path to mainstream consumer law, with its emphasis on informed choice and consumer protection. However, Blaszczynski, Ladouceur, Nower and Shaffer (2005) assert that the primary responsibility of the gambling industry in responsible

provision of gambling is to provide information to meet the conditions of informed choice and not to mislead, exploit or take advantage of gamblers.

Mainstream consumer law regulators, such as State and Territory Fair Trading offices and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), have shown little interest in consumer protection for mainstream gamblers, deferring to the specialist gambling regulators. Nevertheless, consumer affairs agencies have warned consumers against gambling-related products, such as purchasing expensive software that purports to pick the winners, viewing these as scams rather than a genuine gambling issue, e.g. ACCC (2015).

The dramatic change in the gambling industry and its approach to marketing in recent years has brought with it an awareness of the need for informed choice and consumer protection. Developments in this area have been muddled by the need to address the major issue of problem gambling, and the two areas remain tangled. Whilst there is an obvious need to promote informed choice and consumer protection for recreational gamblers, there are also needs in this area for those at risk of developing gambling problems. Some laws and codes of practice describe their responsible gambling strategies as consumer protection, while offering little protection to those who do not have a gambling problem. Concern about wagering inducements has arisen only very recently, as the Internet wagering industry is very young and competition has only lately become intense. The growth of Internet wagering has been marked by a progressive shift of control away from the populated States to some smaller jurisdictions, such as the Northern Territory. As most customers of operators licensed in these smaller jurisdictions reside elsewhere, the governments of these smaller jurisdictions prefer the self-regulation model. This is similar to the European situation, where remote gambling operators have mostly located in small, low tax, minimal regulation jurisdictions.

The State and Territory governments agreed in principle some time ago on the need for a unified approach to consumer protection issues, but there is still much to be done to put this into practice. The wagering industry has also called for greater uniformity between the States and Territories over consumer protection measures, to simplify the regulatory complexities for national wagering operators that strive to comply with a variety of local laws.

The role of the Commonwealth has grown due to its Constitutional powers over trade and commerce as well as telecommunications, as wagering increasingly has become a national industry reliant on the Internet and telephone. The Commonwealth also has power over financial services, which could be relevant to the control of transfers of money to offshore operators, and over corporations, which could enable it to take a much greater role in wagering industry regulation.

The Internet has enabled a third force to compete for the wagering dollar, that of international wagering operators. These operators are outside the jurisdictional reach of Australia. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (IGA) prohibits the provision of gambling services to Australian residents by offshore operators, but allows Australian-licensed Internet wagering operators to operate legally and market their businesses. The IGA prohibits unlicensed offshore operators from accepting certain bets from Australians but does not make it an offence for Australians to place bets offshore. Complaints about illegal offshore gambling operators can be made to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which has the power to refer them to the Australian Federal Police. However, no prosecutions have been instituted under the IGA since its inception.

Interactive wagering services and lotteries can be promoted and advertised by locally licensed operators within Australia (as they are legal forms of gambling under the IGA). Generally these wagering operators offer traditional approaches to race betting and sports betting but some, such as the betting exchange operated by Betfair, offer an entirely new betting model. There are some

restrictions on local licensed operators, such as a prohibition on in-play betting, that put them at a disadvantage to offshore operators. The growth of the offshore wagering market has fuelled ongoing calls from the Australian wagering industry for a lowering of local restrictions, to enable local wagering operators to compete on a level playing field with the offshore providers.

The Betfair (2008) case was a significant legal development that weakened the ability of individual State and Territory governments to control the forms of wagering available to their residents. The basis of the case was Western Australian law which prohibited betting exchanges, preventing Betfair from marketing its business to Western Australian residents. The High Court held that the law was unconstitutional as it restricted trade and commerce between the States.