This bill did not become law and is no longer proceeding.
Transport & communications
Online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. companies could no longer take credit card payments from people in Australia, including payments routed through digital wallets or similar services, but debit cards would still be allowed.
Online betting could still be funded with credit cards, unlike in-person gambling, and existing loss statements were not shown to customers right before they bet. The bill bans credit-card payments, including through linked digital wallets, and requires wagering services to show current-year losses and get an explicit acknowledgement before more betting.
After online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. surged during the pandemic, Australia still barred credit cards in land-based gambling but not online, and the monthly betting statements introduced in 2022 still did not put a customer’s losses in front of them before they placed another bet. Rebekha Sharkie’s 2023 bill responded by proposing a credit-card ban and mandatory loss acknowledgement at sign-in. The private member’s bill was later removed from the Notice Paper, but the government accepted the credit-card recommendation and brought the online credit betting ban into force in June 2024.
The main reservation is that the ban could be weakened in practice if betting companies still let people fund gambling indirectly through workarounds such as vouchers or other credit-linked payment paths. This was not broad parliamentary opposition to the bill itself; it appeared mainly as an implementation and enforcement concern raised in reporting and reflected by the government's later review and regulator oversight arrangements.
Rebekha Sharkie MP introduced this bill. Speeches supporting it came from Centre Alliance, Labor.
Did it become law?
No
The bill did not complete passage through Parliament.
Final passage
No final passage
The bill has not completed passage and is no longer proceeding.
Time before failure
232 days
From introduction to the final recorded step before the bill stopped proceeding
Meaning
Online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. companies could no longer take credit card payments from people in Australia, including payments routed through digital wallets or similar services, but debit cards would still be allowed.
Online betting apps and websites would have to show each customer their losses for the current financial year and get an explicit acknowledgement before letting them keep betting.
Online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. providers could face criminal charges and civil penalties if they accept banned credit card payments, and each extra day of a breach would count as another offence.
The new rules would apply to online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. services, not lotteries, mixed chance-and-skill games, or face-to-face betting.
People could complain to the Australian Communications and Media AuthorityThe regulator that people can complain to about these online gambling rules, and that can investigate and enforce them., and the regulator could investigate and enforce these new online gambling rules.
The Bill prohibits operators of regulated interactive gambling services which are wagering services from accepting credit card payments from customers who are in Australia. This includes payments from a credit card or from an account or service which relies on payment being made from a credit card linked to that account or service. It does not include debit cards.Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) explanatory memorandum
Proposed new section 61RC provides that an individual gives a licensed interactive wagering service provider an acknowledgement of losses in respect of the provision of a licensed interactive wagering service to the individual at a particular time or during a particular period if:Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) explanatory memorandum
The Bill creates a criminal offence and corresponding civil penalty provision if a person intentionally provides a regulated interactive gambling service that is a wagering service (an online gambling service) and accepts, offers to accept, facilitates or promotes credit card payment in connection with the service to a customer in Australia. For each day a contravention continues, a separate offence is committed.Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) explanatory memorandum
It is important to note that the credit card payment prohibition applies only to persons who provide a ‘regulated interactive gambling service’ (within the meaning of section 8E of the IGA) that is a ‘wagering service’ (within the meaning of section 4 of the IGA). It would not apply to regulated interactive gambling services falling within paragraphs (c) – (f) of the definition of ‘gambling service’ in section 4 of the IGA, such as a service for the conduct of a lottery or for the conduct of a game of mixed chance and skill. It would also not apply to face-to-face betting, which is outside the scope of the IGA.Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) explanatory memorandum
Items 5 to 9 are consequential amendments to provide for the prohibition on accepting credit card payments in the new Part 2C to be integrated into the existing provisions of the IGA relating to complaints, investigations and enforcement powers.Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) explanatory memorandum
Context
After online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. surged during the pandemic, Australia still barred credit cards in land-based gambling but not online, and the monthly betting statements introduced in 2022 still did not put a customer’s losses in front of them before they placed another bet. Rebekha Sharkie’s 2023 bill responded by proposing a credit-card ban and mandatory loss acknowledgement at sign-in. The private member’s bill was later removed from the Notice Paper, but the government accepted the credit-card recommendation and brought the online credit betting ban into force in June 2024.
Online gambling spending jumps during the pandemic
The explanatory memorandum says online gambling spending in Australia rose 67 per cent in the first week of April 2020, sharpening concern about how easily wagering could move onto phones and apps.
Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) explanatory memorandum ↗National online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. rules still leave a credit-card gap
The updated National Consumer Protection FrameworkThe national set of online betting safeguards that already banned some credit use but left the credit card gap this bill tries to close. barred lines of credit and payday lending but, unlike land-based gambling rules, still did not stop people using credit cards to gamble online or by telephone.
Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) explanatory memorandum ↗Monthly loss statements begin for online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. customers
Licensed wagering providers had to start sending monthly activity statements and keep account transaction records available, but customers still did not have to confront their losses immediately before betting again.
Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) explanatory memorandum ↗Sharkie introduces a bill to ban credit-card betting and force loss acknowledgement
The bill proposed banning online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. providers from accepting credit cards, including through digital wallets, and requiring customers to acknowledge their current financial-year losses before further betting.
Hansard ↗Banks say more than 500,000 Australians are blocking gambling through their accounts
During the online gambling inquiry, the Australian Banking Association said more than half a million Australians were using bank tools to cut themselves off from gambling and attacked the remaining online credit-card loophole as absurd.
Australian Financial Review ↗Government backs a national ban on credit cards for online gambling
The government’s response to the parliamentary committee supported legislation to stop online gambling providers accepting payment by credit cards, including through digital wallets, signalling that the reform would proceed beyond the private member’s bill.
Department of Infrastructure ↗Online credit betting ban starts across Australia
From this date, online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. providers were officially banned from accepting credit cards, credit-related products such as digital wallets, and digital currencies, with ACMAThe regulator that people can complain to about these online gambling rules, and that can investigate and enforce them. overseeing compliance.
Department of Infrastructure ↗Bet365 is probed over a possible credit-card ban loophole
Less than 48 hours after the ban began, the communications minister sought urgent advice over reports that Bet365 customers could still fund vouchers with credit and use them to deposit into betting accounts.
Australian Financial Review ↗Legislative route
The bill was formally presented to the chamber and read a first time, which starts its parliamentary journey.
Introduced and read a first time
A minister or sponsoring member moved the second reading, opening the main debate on the bill's purpose and principles.
Second reading moved
The bill was removed from the House Notice Paper under standing order 42, ending its recorded parliamentary progress.
Removed from the Notice Paper in accordance with (SO 42)
Key criticism
The main reservation is that the ban could be weakened in practice if betting companies still let people fund gambling indirectly through workarounds such as vouchers or other credit-linked payment paths. This was not broad parliamentary opposition to the bill itself; it appeared mainly as an implementation and enforcement concern raised in reporting and reflected by the government's later review and regulator oversight arrangements.
No party represented in the debate opposed the bill, but enforcement gaps remained a credible risk.
Possible loopholes and weak enforcement
A credible criticism was that the credit card ban might not fully stop credit-funded gambling if bookmakers could still accept money through indirect methods such as vouchers or similar payment pathways. That concern goes to how the law is enforced rather than its policy goal.
Further sources
Votes
No recorded votes were found before this bill stopped proceeding.
Parliamentary debate
Start here — lead voices
Sharkie strongly समर्थनs the bill and says it is needed to stop people using credit for online wageringBetting on sports or racing through apps or websites instead of in a physical venue. and to make them confront the amount they have lost.
Read in Hansard ↗Freelander supports the bill and says it is long past time to act on the harms caused by online gambling, especially the use of credit cards and aggressive marketing to young people.
Read in Hansard ↗All speeches by bloc
1 speaker · 1 support
“I'm very grateful to the member for Mayo for bringing this bill to parliament, but I know that the Albanese government will be taking action against online gambling in the not-too-distant future. We look forward to the committee's report. I commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to further action by the Albanese government.”Read the full speech in Hansard ↗
1 speaker · 1 support
“Per capita we are the world's biggest losers. Those figures are from 2018-19. We lose $25 billion every year. I think, with online gambling, since that time those figures have increased. We can gamble away our home when we're sitting in our home thanks to online gambling and thanks to credit card use. People suffering gambling are four times more likely to be using credit cards to gamble. That is why my bill will ban the use of credit for regulated interactive wagering services. This was a recommendation of the Labor chaired Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services in the last parliament. After hearing ample evidence that the use of credit for online wagering contributes to increasing gambling harm there is no excuse for us to delay.”Read the full speech in Hansard ↗
Record
House · Introduced and read a first time
Introduced
The bill was formally presented to the chamber and read a first time, which starts its parliamentary journey.
House · Second reading moved
Second reading opened
A minister or sponsoring member moved the second reading, opening the main debate on the bill's purpose and principles.
House · Removed from the Notice Paper in accordance with (SO 42)
Removed from Notice Paper
The bill was removed from the House Notice Paper under standing order 42, ending its recorded parliamentary progress.
