South Australia Online Casinos

Update 2017: The Australian Government has now outlawed online casinos in the country. This means that operators are not licensed nor are they legally entitled to offer gambling services to Australian residents. Any sites that still accept Australian players are in direct contravention of government laws. Players funds may not be safe with these operators as they have no means of retrieving their funds in the case of any legal disputes. VegasSlotsOnline.com does not endorse any of these casinos and strongly recommends that Aussies avoid them until online gaming is regulated in the country. Please visit our casinos by country page to check the regulation of other localities. 

The below article has been left online for informational purposes only.

South Australia is home to 1.7 million people, almost all of whom live in or near the capital city of Adelaide. The only state to border every other state or territory on the mainland, SA is known as the Wine State or the Festival State: fitting monikers for an area that is best known for its agricultural production and its cultural festivals.

When it comes to gambling, Adelaide is also the centre of the state, as it plays host to the only casino you will find here: the appropriately-named Adelaide Casino, which has been in operation for over 30 years. Along with racing, lotteries, and pokies, you can also find plenty of online gambling options here, many of which are provided by foreign companies that allow Australians to take part in their real money games.

Small Population Supports Plenty of Gaming

South Australia is home to just 1.7 million people, but that hasn’t stopped the state from developing a robust gaming sector, one that supports a wide variety of betting types. The most obvious of these is the Adelaide Casino, which has been attracting visitors and gamblers ever since it was first opened in 1985.

When the location first opened, the casino was relatively small, offering up only about 90 table games and little else. But as in much of the rest of the country, options began to expand here in the early 1990s. In 1991, the first electronic games were introduced, and by 1993, the casino had received permission to operate real money slots. Today, there are about 950 poker machines in the resort, along with the 90 gaming tables it has had from the beginning. While the venue opened under the same name that it now uses, that wasn’t always the case: from 2001 to 2009, it was known as Skycity Adelaide, as the location was purchased by the Skycity Entertainment Group in 2000. The casino has a monopoly on table gaming in the state through at least 2035.

Of course, pokies aren’t just contained to this one complex. As in most of the country, they have proliferated throughout the state, with 13,000 machines (including those at the casino) found at venues throughout SA. Clubs and pubs account for most of these games. Interestingly, the laws in SA are a bit more restrictive when it comes to poker machines than in the rest of the nation: players may not use bills or high value coins to play the machines, with only $1 coins or tokens being authorized for use here.

This is also an excellent state to visit if you are interested in catching some racing action. Despite recent controversy over the practice, Greyhound Racing SA is still quite successful, and the state hosts the AGRA National meet every year. Meanwhile, thoroughbred horse racing is also a popular pastime in the state, with the biggest centre of action being at Morphettville, where the South Australian Jockey Club hosts 58 days of racing each year. These include several Group 1 races, such as the South Australian Derby and the Australasian Oaks, both of which are held annually in April.

Lotteries are also widely available here, run through the SA Lotteries brand and administered (as in the rest of the countries) by Tatts under the banner of “the Lott.” Along with major jackpots like Powerball, Oz Lotto, and Set for Life, South Australia is also known for running the Australian Soccer Pools, which pick numbers based on the results of domestic and foreign soccer matches. On a related note, sports betting is also legal in the state, with many regulated bookmakers taking bets in person and over the phone on sporting events from around the world.

Online Sports Betting Regulated, Offshore Sites Provide Casino Games

Those same regulated sportsbooks are also allowed to take bets over the Internet, even though most forms of online gambling are not permitted in Australia. Throughout the country, Internet betting is covered by the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 (IGA), a bill the Government passed in order to curtail what they saw as the negative effects of online gambling.

The IGA makes it a crime to offer any “interactive” gambling products to Australians, whether or not the group or individual doing so is actually located in the country. Just as importantly, however, it does nothing to criminalize making such bets for Australians, meaning that individuals are free to use such sites if they want to: it is only the companies themselves that offer these services that are breaking the law.

This soft ban applies to casino games and poker, but some other forms of wagering are allowed. As we noted, sports betting is a fully legal and regulated practice, and that extends to the online world – with a handful of exceptions. Most notably, bookies are not allowed to take in-play bets over the Internet: once a game has started, wagers can only be placed by phone or directly in person at a retail location. The idea here is that in-play betting is truly interactive, as punters are directly responding to changing match conditions. Similarly, lottery tickets may be purchased online, but players cannot buy instant win or scratch off cards in this way; they may only participate in regularly scheduled drawings.

Unsurprisingly, with a lack of some major forms of Internet gaming under the IGA, foreign firms have been happy to step in to provide poker sites and web-based casinos for the Australian public. While these operators may not be complying with the Government’s laws, they have so far seen very little pushback, leading most of them to treat Australia as a “grey market” – one in which there may not be any licensing system in place, but also one in which they feel comfortable operating.

While this might seem a bit shady on the surface, we’d like to reiterate that there is absolutely nothing illegal about playing on such sites, and countless Aussies play for real money with overseas operators every day. Many of the world’s biggest gambling companies offer their games here, providing reputable and trustworthy services even in the absence of any real regulation.

Variety of Issues Promote Climate of Uncertainty

There are a lot of changes in store for the gaming industry, both in Australia as a whole and SA specifically. Nearly all corners of the industry are likely to be touched in some way, from the local racing culture to national policies that impact Internet casino play.

One of the most dynamic topics in the Australian sporting and betting communities at the moment is the future of greyhound racing. Following exposes that have uncovered sometimes horrific abuses of the dogs that are bred to compete in these races, there have been renewed calls for banning the practice altogether. Some states are even listening, with both NSW and the ACT saying that dog racing will no longer be permitted in their jurisdictions as of sometime in 2017.

But SA has announced that they have no plans to shut down the races in their state. According to Racing Minister Leon Bignell, the South Australian industry hasn’t shown the same kinds of problems that were seen in NSW and some other locations. In fact, Bignell even rejected calls for an inquiry into the practices of the industry, saying that it was “good, clean, and safe.”

SA is also looking to retain more of the revenue that their citizens generate when they bet on sports, particularly over the Internet. In June 2016, the state became the first in the country to introduce an interstate “point of consumption” tax on wagering. Essentially, the tax will be charge on any profits made from bets by South Australian players – even if the business taking those bets are located in the Northern Territory or other locations. The 15% tax is expected to bring in about $9 million per year for the state.

But who receives the benefits of online gambling is an issue that extends far beyond the borders of SA. That topic was one of the major questions explored in Barry O’Farrell’s review of offshore gambling, one that could prompt major changes to the IGA and how the Government deals with the gaming industry as a whole.

One thing that both industry officials and lawmakers seem to be in agreement about is the need for a crackdown against such operators, whom they feel compete illegally against the licensed bookmakers in the country. Recommendations to the Government have included forcing ISPs to block access to overseas sites, and for sanctions to be put into effect against the directors of these companies, perhaps even extending to a ban on them entering Australia in the future.

Industry insiders were less enthused about a recommendation that would maintain the ban on in-play betting over the web – something they say only benefits the illegal operators who do take such bets. Moreover, the Government seems poised to close the loopholes that have allowed some licensed bookies to offer “click-to-call” service on mobile phones, allowing them to get around the ban.

These aren’t the only issues in play at the moment. SA is also dealing with declining pokies revenue, leading some to suggest that it is high time that the state remove the prohibition on using bills in the machines. With so many avenues for change under consideration at the moment, the only firm prediction we can make is that the gaming industry will see changes in the months and years to come, though it is far from certain exactly what those changes will be.