ACMA Blocks Two More Online Gaming Sites March 2025

On March 18, 2025, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced that two more gambling websites have been blocked. The ACMA has been attempting to block site access for many years with little success.

As was announced on the ACMA website, all Australian internet service providers will stop allowing consumers to access two online gambling sites.

The ACMA Regulates Australian Gambling

The ACMA is the main regulatory body within Australia that controls the media. Gambling, television, and radio all fall under the jurisdiction of the ACMA.

With regards to gambling, the ACMA mostly focuses on enforcing safe gambling measures to prevent illegal and unapproved operators from serving Australian citizens.

The ACMA regulates internet gambling and other media in Australia

The Interactive Gaming Act 2001 was amended back in 2017 to more clearly restrict online gambling. As a result, it is illegal for any online casino provider located outside of Australia to offer services to Australian citizens. However, there's no corresponding legislation making it against the law for individual players to gamble online.

Only Two Casino Sites Blocked

As a result of this most recent action by the ACMA, Australian internet service providers have blocked two specific online gambling websites. The two blocked gambling sites are Crown Slots and Billy Billion.

As has been the case with the vast majority of the blocked websites in the past, both of these sites offer online casino gaming. These sites are not licensed to offer online gambling services of any kind to Australians.

Both Crown Slots and Billy Billion mainly offer digital slot games. The primary issue is that no offshore operator can obtain the proper licensure required to cater to Australians.

Sites Join a Growing Blacklist

The ACMA first began this kind of enforcement back in November 2019. Since then, 1,178 supposedly illegal gambling sites and affiliate marketing sites have been blocked and added to the list of prohibited sites.

Hundreds of operators have chosen to stop serving Australians to comply with these stringent regulations. Despite these somewhat large numbers, the actual effectiveness of these efforts are questionable at best.

The ACMA Continues Blocking Sites

The ACMA has been blocking sites for many years now. In September 2023, the ACMA blocked ViperSpin Casino.. Then in December 2023, the ACMA blocked eleven sites. In February 2024, the ACMA blocked Wazamba Casino and many other sites.

The ACMA continues to claim that these efforts are helpful to Australian citizens. Unfortunately, we feel that the ACMA's efforts are largely unsuccessful as well as counterproductive. Australians can bypass these bans quite easily by adjusting DNS settings. Also, gambling sites can set up new URLs to circumvent the original URL being blocked by the ACMA. Many blocked sites have multiple URLs and continue operating with alternative URLs.

There are other risks to players. By targeting the most popular gaming websites, the ACMA risks diverting customers over to less trustworthy operators. These include “social poker” app clubs that are often fronts for illegal real money gaming with shady ownership structures and unreliable networks of agents and sub-agents handling withdrawal requests.

Online Gambling is Safe and Available in Australia

Despite the continued ACMA regulation, safe online casino gambling and poker are available to Australians.

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If you would like to learn more about Ignition, please check out this detailed review of Ignition Casino. If you'd like to learn more about other trusted online casinos serving Australians, please feel free to browse over to this guide regarding top online casinos for Australians.

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