Australia is known for its tough stance on gambling, and the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 makes it illegal for Australian-based online casinos to offer real-money gambling services to Australian residents. The Act does, however, make exceptions for “designated services” like sports betting and lottery(like 22aud website). This means that it is not altogether impossible to run an online casino in Australia, but any investors thinking about giving it a go must proceed with caution. The Act explicitly states: “Unauthorised online gambling targets customers living in Australia and is in violation of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001”. While it might be tempting to try and tempt Australian players to gamble with you, the penalties for doing so are likely to send you bankrupt. Moreover, many players are switched on enough to recognize the tell-tale signs of a fraudulent casino. Try to sneak past these regulations, and Australian players will see right through you and spend their money elsewhere.
Understanding Australian Gambling Laws
Australian gambling laws are complex and not particularly modern, having been set in motion before the online boom. There is little to say in terms of legal clarity and the best advice one can give is to consult a legal professional in the region. However, we aim to briefly outline the fundamental laws of land based casino gambling to help clarify any grey areas and allow operators to move forward with their businesses in the most efficient way possible.
Obtaining the Required Licenses
In 2001, the Australian Commonwealth Parliament passed the Interactive Gambling Act. This made it illegal to offer online gambling services to Australian players without the appropriate licenses, which are issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). On top of this, everything is made difficult by the fact that each region has its own rules and regulations. The requirements can therefore vary drastically depending on where the casino intends to operate. This means that any operator looking for the best casino licenses in Australia must be diligent in their approach.
Complying with Anti-Money Laundering Regulations
Signing up with AUSTRAC, obtaining a lawyer and creating an anti-money laundering program could cost you anywhere from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand dollars. Ensuring that you have the necessary funds to meet these obligations should be your first financial goal before beginning any online gambling enterprises.
Finally, it is important that you report all suspicious behaviors to the office of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (AUSTRAC). Usually, companies would ignore such activity but today, if you fail to meet your obligations, you could be heavily fined and sentenced.
In order to enforce this, the government created additional agencies and reports. No longer can casinos merely report large and suspicious transactions like all other businesses. Gaming venues now must also report instances with any appearance of corruption, criminal activity or gross misconduct.
Further, in recent years, Australia updated the AML regulations, requiring new reporting and compliance practices. Money transfer businesses and gambling service providers are now more tightly regulated in order to prevent financial crime and growth of terrorism.
This program should include the following: – Identify heightened-risk customers and apply additional customer due diligence procedures – Develop a communication strategy for its employees to be vigilant for signs of money laundering or attempts to finance terrorism – Ensure that the program is regularly updated and reviewed.
In order to comply with anti-money laundering regulations in Australia, it is paramount that you first understand what these regulations consist of. In general, businesses have to develop a program to identify, mitigate and manage money laundering risks.
Lack of Proper Planning
Developing a solid business plan is the first step to starting your business. Having a business plan is crucial for a number of reasons. One of them is that it gives investors something to look at when considering funding your company and it also forces you to think critically about the details of your company. Additionally, you will be much more focused and driven if you have a business plan in place. A business plan can also be used as a tool to strictly adhere to when things get tough. To create a business plan visit the Wikipedia page, which has some brilliant ideas on how to achieve such a thing.
Developing a Solid Business Plan
When opening an online casino, many people realize late that they should have prioritised creating a business plan for their new project. This is not unique to the gambling industry, but for legal and regulatory complexities in the Australian market, it’s also common for those running an online casino which target this specific region to face numerous difficulties along the way just because their business plan and it’s main developmental stages were rushed or not put into place from the get-go. Given that a casino, online or otherwise, is designed to provide an environment of constant entertainment, with high monetary yields and satisfied customers, it’s surprising how many of the new upcoming casinos do not consider the relevance of such a structured all round plan. With a business plan in place, reflecting the essence of the casino’s mission statement, you will be able to effectively translate your interactive gambling model and marketing strategies to potential and existing investors, giving, whenever needed, an insight of the casino’s future returns on their investment.
Conducting Market Research
By understanding your customers, their preferences and behaviors, you could identify a number of factors to include in your offering, from language to targeted games. Failing to do so could lead your business into a high level of risk and subsequent losses. The majority of casino owners make a serious mistake when launching their online casino without properly investigating the market in depth. This can result in lost money or could require them to change a number of factors about their business. If they had initially looked at market research, they could have spotted a number of advantages and loopholes within this highly competitive industry, and therefore, made a more informed decision as to whether or not to continue with their business idea.
Setting Realistic Financial Goals
Instead, realistically it won’t happen. Instead, be conservative in your estimates of money invested, player numbers, and earnings. This way if there are any unexpected problems, you can be prepared for them. A good way to do this is to air on the side of caution, costly as it may seem. Always imagine a worst case scenario and see how it would affect your online casino’s success and whether you could handle it; if you can then do it. Always prepare for bad news.
Creating a Marketing Strategy
As online gambling is a competitive market, it is crucial to have a unique and strong marketing strategy. It is essential to have a clear idea about the aim of your online casino, and if you need assistance, you can always take the help of a professional marketing company. Other than that, having a creative and well-structured website, frequent publication of SEO optimised blog posts, online social media marketing, and effective offline advertisement campaigns are some very good marketing strategies that you can apply to your online casino business. Remember to have a strong public relations, social media presence, search engine optimization, content strategy and traffic campaign. Additionally, do not underestimate the power of referral marketing.
Inadequate Security Measures
Implementing SSL Encryption An SSL certificate provides a secure link between a web server and a browser. It ensures that all the data transferred between the two remains private and secure. All information is encrypted, and even if intercepted, hackers would be unable to decrypt the data. SSL encryption is crucial to ensure all customer data remains private to prevent fraudulent activity. It also ensures that your online casino CMS (Casino Management System) is secure. Secure cabinets are recommended to ensure the safety of all servers and computers that store sensitive information.ryptography and blockchain technology provide a foundation for fraud protection. Protecting Customer Data It is essential that an online casino protects its customer data at all times. When hackers gain access to incident reports, customer data and start using it illegally, your online casino’s reputation can be severely damaged. It is the casino owner’s responsibility to protect customer data to prevent it from being stolen and used in fraudulent activities. You need to ensure all traffic to and from your site is secured over an encrypted layer. Data which includes personal and banking information needs to be encrypted always. Preventing Fraudulent Activities Cases involving fraudulent activities in the gambling industry are quite common. They often involve false wins, fake deposits, and false advertising of casino jackpot wins. Preventing these fraudulent activities is key to maintaining your online casino’s reputation with you customers. You must use secure connection methods such as VPN’s (Virtual Private Networks). A VPN ensures that internet activity is anonymous and the identity of the user remains protected. Servers hosting databases that store information related to customer accounts, customer personal details and banking information need to be physically secure. All these servers and the connections from and between them need to be encrypted.
Implementing SSL Encryption
We advice all operators to understand SSL safety and leave it to the professionals. Encryption is not something you want to figure out by trial and error. It will leave you susceptible to hackers and fraudsters. This is not the type of area to skimp on costs. We always advise putting in the extra investment to ensure your players details always remain safe and secure. Always think to yourself, what would happen if my casino got hacked? Having all your player credit card details stolen is not a situation you want to be in. Always consider what is at stake and if you are putting in adequate steps to protect that.
Protecting Customer Data
Most casino players are not very fond of revealing their identity, and you should expect them to demand anonymity in every way possible. One of the incentives for payment channels that comply with prepaid systems, vouchers, e-wallets or cryptocurrencies is that you are not required to disclose personal information, following strict KYC procedures. Here, it is important to inform customers that you are in control and manage all data responsibly. In addition to this, categorize player segment data under classification to find the most suitable marketing tactics.
Preventing Fraudulent Activities
The most common or fraudulent activities that are aimed at an online casino are: Money laundering, Payment fraud, Credential Stuffing, Bonus abuse and Account takeovers. In the first year of business, it’s not uncommon for online casinos to operate at a loss, as they seek to build a customer base, but as it becomes more and more established, they will find themselves targeted by fraudulent activity as they become known as a reliable source of business. This guide is focused at helping new online casinos understand that this is a possible outcome and how not to focus entirely on this potential issue but put measures in place from the start to prevent this happening as long as possible.
Insufficient Customer Support
Unfortunately, many online casinos forget to consider how the customer will feel if they have a problem. Failing to provide adequate customer support can result in significant losses from what would otherwise be retained players. There are many common issues which inexperienced operators will overlook, and one of the worst aspects of this is that they won’t know about them until it is too late. Here are some common problems that could severely damage the potential success of an online casino, and how you can avoid them.
Providing 24/7 Assistance
Customer service is key to the success of an online casino in Australia. If you do not offer quality customer support, you will not get very far. First and foremost, you need to offer 24/7 customer support. The majority of your clients are going to be awake during the evening hours because online gaming is their form of entertainment. If something were to happen to an account in the middle of the night, the customer would not be able to contact the customer service team due to the hours of operation. After doing research, you will realize many complaints are made in regards to response time. Remember, many people do not have the time to contact through a telephone number. A huge percentage of the population in Australia is looking for a quick response via online chat.
Offering Multiple Support Channels
The more ways there are to reach customer service at any given time, the better. At online casinos, customer service representatives should be available 24/7 via email, phone, and live chat. There should be multiple representatives on hand at all times to accommodate all issues and concerns. It’s surprising how many online casinos are still missing the point of good customer service. Almost all of them offer live chat, but it’s common for a player to be told that the representative can’t help them and they’ll have to contact a different department. There are also many more who only have an email address for support and no phone number or live chat – this is unacceptable.
Training Support Staff Effectively
One of the biggest mistakes new online casinos in Australia make is not preparing their support staff effectively. Many financial institutions only have trained professionals starting with supervisors. This means that the only way that these representatives enter their job lineup is likely to be used to having comfortable talks in normal spoken English. The final thing that you have to do is throw them into customer sessions for the first time, making them think they are unable to manage them and then having them upset and building customers.
