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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1105 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

sports betting entirely by saying, "Okay, there will be no online sports betting in the ACT at all. We will issue more licences, but there will be no online placing of bets for sports betting".

At the present time two of the existing licences which operate in the sports betting, as I understand it, do not take Internet bets. They only take telephone or personal bets. So it would not be a great restriction to some of these outlets at all. We can say, "You can have as many licences as you want but no taking bets over the Internet". The punters would have to pick up the telephone or be at the racetrack or wherever else the office of the sports betting agency might be. How is that going to help deal with the problem of online gambling? Of course it is not. It would have no impact on online gambling. The issue Ms Tucker has raised is not about online gambling. The issue she has raised is about access to a form of gambling.

I forget whom Ms Tucker was quoting - I think she might have been quoting this Netbets report or some other outlet - but she said, "The more outlets there are, the more money will be spent on them", or words to that effect. That might be true, Mr Speaker, for TABs. If I live a long way away from one, you might not go to the TAB to place your bets. It would certainly be true of poker machines. If one is not handy to your house, if it is a long way away from you, some nights of the week you might not take the trouble of going down to the club or wherever to bet some money on the poker machines. That is true.

But sports betting is inherently different. Sports betting is generally a form of gambling accessed remotely, accessed wherever there is a telephone or there is a computer terminal that is on line. In that sense, how does restricting the number of operators in the field inhibit access? How does it deal with this issue Ms Tucker has raised of the more outlets there are the more money will be spent on it? You cannot restrict the number of outlets unless you cut off people's telephones and refuse to connect them on line to computer accessible services. Sports betting is not inhibited by the issues that Ms Tucker is raising.

Mr Speaker, we have checked with the secretariat of the Senate committee that inquired into online gambling, and it has confirmed that the Senate committee report envisaged a moratorium on Internet gambling but not on telephone betting, for example. We could say tomorrow, "We are changing the conditions on the licences. Nobody will get access to sports betting by the Internet. We will satisfy the concerns of the Senate committee. There will be no more sports betting by the Internet". If we did that, every one of the existing operators could continue to do business.

We could issue another dozen licences, another two dozen licences or however many more licences we wanted, and people would still get access to sports betting, because Internet access is not the key to this issue. Ms Tucker seeks to restrict the number of people who can provide sports betting in the ACT but ignores the fact that there is unlimited access in other forms. With respect, this argument is misconceived.

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