The Australian Election Is Raising a Host of Worries for Online Poker Players

Added: August 29, 2013

Anyone who has been into online gambling for a while, will no doubt remember Black Friday. This was the day, almost two years ago now, that the USA outlawed online poker entirely, and forced major online casino sites such as PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and PartyPoker to withdraw their online casino sites from America. This left many USA based professional online poker players in a real mess, forcing many to relocate to other countries so that they could continue earning their living.

The upcoming Australian election could see a similar thing happen in Australia, and local online poker players fear that if the Liberal Party win the Australian election, that they could see their own localized version of Black Friday take place.

Most online poker players in Australia are hoping that Kevin Rudd, the leader of the Labor Party wins the Australian election, as the party has not issued any statements regarding online gambling law. On the other hand, if Tony Abbott of the Liberal Party manages to scoop the win at the Australian election, then online gambling law is almost certainly set to change, and this would see online poker being outlawed in Australia.

Tony Abbott has publically stated that online poker and online casino sites are, "a dark cave into which people can so easily retreat and there they are beyond help.” And has said that online gambling law will certainly change if he is elected to power. This spurred a whole host of Twitter comments, with people stating that his level of ignorance was intolerable, some of these tweets were pretty harsh.

Independent research in Australia has proven that online poker is one of the most least likely forms of online gambling to result in addiction. Indeed, a significant number of people rely upon online poker to feed their families, how can this be a bad thing?

However, this is entirely overlooked by the Liberal Party, as they continue to tout a revision of online gambling laws as one of their main campaign issues. Funny how a party named Liberal want to put a stop to genuine online poker players from earning a living and enjoying themselves? Doesn’t sound very liberal to us.

So, if you are an Australian online poker player, it’s time to tick the right box when it comes to the Australian election, otherwise you may no longer be able to play online poker.