Online Casino Conditions - Betting News - Online Betting Sites in Australia to Pay Sports Organizations

The sports betting industry in Australia is a very lucrative one. In fact, it is so lucrative that the object of these bets - the sports organizations themselves - are asking the Victorian government to consider writing gambling legislation that would call for a portion of the assets earned off of sports betting to be paid to the sports organizations. Now that an open dialogue has been initiated by the Minister for Gaming, John Pandazopoulos, it is expected that the Victorian government will be handed a policy position paper by the Office of Gaming and Racing in a few months time.

The notion of getting sports organizations on the cut began in November of 2003, when six notable sports organizations - Australia PGA, Football Federation of Australia, Cricket Australia, Tennis Australia, the Australian Rugby Union and the National Rugby Union - joined together to form the Coalition of Major Professional Sports (COMPS), and began lobbying the Victorian government, thus bringing attention to their concerns that not only were they not getting a say in who could participate in gambling activities over their respective sport, but that they were not receiving any portion of the A$1.6 billion in annual revenue brought in by the Australian betting industry as well.

After sending an official letter to the Victorian government as recent as September of last year, Pandazopoulos took up a charge by publishing a discussion paper that was intended to garner feedback from professionals and sportsbook operators regarding their feelings about COMP'S concerns. Ten major sports betting operators replied with written statements concerning the discussion paper, with at least eight of them being in favor of what COMPS was proposing. The supporters included RacingVictoria Limited, Tabcorp, Sporting Management Concepts, IntraLot Australia, Australian Footbal League, Sports Acumen, Victorian Bookmaker's Association and COMPS, while the lone objectors were the Association of Australian Bookmaking Companies (which is made up of Sportingbet, Centrebet and IASbet. Betfair also submitted a response, but was done so confidentially.

By the looks of things as they stand right now, the future is very favorable for COMPS. While there is no word on just how much COMPS is expecting to get kicked back from the Australian sports betting industry, or to what extent their power to regulate bettors will go, the final word on the matter should be favorable, to say the least. Current law does not require bookies - online or land-based - to return revenue to sports organizations or get prior approval for wagered games.

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