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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1101 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
. the prohibition on any form of gambling manipulation, specifically the 'near miss' signal, which gives gamblers the perception that they have just missed out on a jackpot, thereby inducing them to continue gambling.
. the provision of personal electronic security passwords, 'challenge' questions and PIN numbers to ensure that gambling sites cannot be accessed by any other family member.
. strict privacy arrangements to protect consumers' financial details including gambling accounts, credit card identification and exclusion arrangements.
. legislation to ensure that all online winnings are paid by non-negotiable cheques posted to the registered gambling account holder. Credit card accounts should not be used to receive automatic payment from on line gambling wins.
. the need to work with international agencies, the National Crime Authority (NCA) and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) to stop Australian online gambling sites being used to 'launder' large amounts of illegally acquired money.
Pending the implementation of these consumer protection policies the Committee recommends that no further online gambling licences be granted in Australia for a limited period of time. This moratorium should be implemented by the Ministerial Council on Gambling with the assistance of Federal, State and Territory governments, or through the Commonwealth's power to regulate telecommunications.
There were more recommendations. I will not read them all out. A few comments from the National Office for the Information Economy report "E-commerce beyond 2000" are interesting:
The Productivity Commission's report asserts that gambling is a supply driven industry: the more outlets there are, the more money will be gambled. The development of Internet gambling, which brings the means to gamble into the home, vastly increases the number of outlets and it follows that substantially more money will be bet.
If Internet gambling grows to about $1 billion dollars by 2003, one could postulate that between 50 and 70 percent would be diverted from traditional channels.
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