• Government ministers talk of banning sign up bonus bets

• Signup bonuses were active until legislature was passed to enforce the ban

Headlines have hit the media with claims that further restrictions will be placed on online bookmakers in regards to the offering of signup bonuses.  Apparently, all betting companies targeting Australians, including the larger betting sites, won’t be able to offer bonus bets with signup deposits for new clients.

These headlines were in response to a recent gathering of the country’s gambling ministers, headed by Alan Tudge the Human Services Minister, it seems an “agreement” was formed to ban sign up bonus offers. However an agreement was made at that time without legislation and signup bonus offers were still in place at time of writing.
It is fair to say that the ministers have formed an idea of what they want to do, whether these come to fruition is yet to be seen.

Racing.com claims the restrictions will be put into place “from June 2018 on credit and free bet offers”

Obviously government bodies are working hard to ensure a “safe” gambling environment is being setup in Australia, recent initiatives include compulsory punter self-exclusion measures, bans on credit facilities, restriction on advertising during sporting events, restrictions on signup bonus betting in NSW, VIC, WA & SA, just to name a few.

The government has managed to legislate the banning of signup bonuses to aforementioned states , however the betting companies still get away with advertising it by using disclaimers in fine print that the offer is not valid for some states. To counter these legal tricks by the betting companies it probably won’t be long before these bans are put into place country-wide.