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In Australia, poker sites can be accessed for both play and real-money action. Try out a few games or variants at the play-money tables, then make a deposit and hit the big-money tables. You can play cash games for as little as $0.01/$0.02, enter a $5 Sit 'n Go, or play in a $10 tournament with a $5000 guaranteed prizepool. Australian Poker Sites. Playing Real Money Online Poker in Australian. It is all change in Australia as far as online poker is concerned. For many years, Australians could enjoy online poker games – as long as they were not hosted inside Australia. In 2017, an act was passed ‘closing loopholes’, effectively outlawing online poker.

For years, Australian online poker players have been lobbying for a way to play their beloved card game online, and legally.

If live in Australia then you will have known that the way players have had to play poker online was to frequent offshore poker sites to get their fill of the action.

A recently proposed bill may have changed all of that. However, the new Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016 has effectively killed off the online poker industry in the country…or have they?

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The Big Question: Can I Play Online Poker in the Australia

Contents

• Australian Poker Laws, Rules and Regulations

Groups such as the Salvation Army have long been against any further expansion of gambling laws in Australia. Gambling is immensely popular in Australia, although players will have a hard time finding online places to play. The vast majority of Australians tend to wager on pokie machines. Despite how they may sound, these are simply slot machines, and often have very little to do with poker or video poker for that matter. Whilst the land-based gambling laws are not federal and are decided at a state level. The same is not true of online gambling laws.

The Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 made it quite clear that Australian gambling operators were not permitted to accept players based in Australia. This also applied to the advertisements. To combat, that, offshore operators began to offer their services to players in Australia instead. For the last 16 years, this is how many Australians managed to play poker online. That loophole has now been closed, though, thanks to the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016. In theory, no, Australians cannot play online poker. In practice, though, yes…

Australian Poker Laws, Rules and Regulations

The Australian Government hopes that by passing the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016, they will be able to stop Aussies from accessing offshore poker rooms as well as casinos and sportsbooks. In effect, it makes it illegal for offshore companies to offer their services to domestic players. Many leading poker players came forward to spearhead a movement to have this bill thrown out, but ultimately, they failed.

Does this mean that Australians are now going to be denied the right to play poker online at offshore poker sites? Not necessarily, and here’s why…

• The bill only targets operators and providers, not Australian players
• ISPs may block offshore sites, but VPNs and proxies can get around that
• Poker games are still legal in land-based venues, thanks to independent state laws

There are, of course, drawbacks to the bill being passed all the same. Ever since the amendment was made, a record number of poker sites have been pulling out of Australian market. These offshore poker domains (although offering poker illegally to players in the first place) are now well and truly beyond reach and refuse to accept Australian players. The danger with this is that if Australian players will want to get their fill of poker, they may have to turn to poorly regulated offshore sites.

Australian Poker Licence Authorities

Australia doesn’t have it own licensing authority as poker players have only ever been able to play at offshore poker sites, Australians aren’t going to too worried if they have to in the future if they wish to get round any potential ban.

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Unlike some Aussie favourites, which were generally licensed out of respectable licensing jurisdictions, and that means that they were fully regulated. Offshore casinos are often licensed out of Curacao and Panama (for less, respectable jurisdictions), so the chances are that more than a few Australians are going to fall victim to scams, rogue casinos and blacklisted poker rooms because of these harsher restrictions, and that has the opposite effect of what the Salvation Army and other anti-gambling groups want.

To be frank, you can’t really find tougher poker laws in western or established countries than those of Australia. They are far behind Canada’s liberal grey-zone laws, and even behind the United States (which takes some doing), who permit poker gameplay online in licensed casinos in three states and do nothing to stop players from trying their luck at offshore poker rooms. Australia is, therefore, a million miles behind the UK (the most open of the four countries), with the difference between the openness to online poker being laughable.

Popular Poker Games in Australia

The game selection at Australian poker sites is nothing less than the one at other top notch poker rooms. Australian players have a love of the same types of poker games that you can find elsewhere across the globe. Given that most of the poker sites they will be playing at are offshore poker rooms, that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.

Popular poker games that Australians try their hand at include:

• Casino Hold’em
• Stud and Draw Poker

Apart from the variety of poker games, these sites include other types of games such as blackjack and roulette as an alternative whenever you want to relax.

Australians also have access to a wealth of poker tournaments (again, provided they play at offshore poker rooms) and these include Sit & Go’s and guaranteed prize pot games with a multitude of different blinds, pots and buy-ins. Admittedly, Australian players will have a hard time gaining access to WSOP (World Series of Poker) satellites on account of them having to play at small-scale offshore poker rooms, which do not generally tend to offer such competitions.

Online Poker Australian Promos and Bonuses

On the upside, the types of poker sites that Aussies have open to them tend to offer considerable bonuses and promotions. Caution must be exercised when claiming these offers; Curacao licensed poker sites are known for their generous bonuses, but they do come with considerable wagering requirements.

This is because unlike other poker sites, the types of poker rooms accessible to Australians do not pay out their bonuses in instalments. These bonuses and promos may also require promotional bonus codes.

Available bonuses and promos for poker players in Australia include:

• Welcome bonuses and re-deposit deals
• Loyalty bonuses and VIP schemes
• Rakebacks

Depositing/Withdrawing Options Available To Australian Players

Fortunately, although the Australian authorities are cracking down on operators who provide access to poker rooms, they aren’t cutting off the banking system from authorising gambling payments. This means that Aussies can use a wide variety of banking options to deposit at their favourite poker rooms.

Popular poker payment methods include credit cards such as MasterCard and VISA. POLi is particular popular in Australia and is their own e-wallet. FlexePIN is another major option, although not every poker room accepts it. Paysafecard and PayPal are also particularly popular online poker payment methods for Australian players to use when playing poker online.

The variety of options is not a problem for these players, but their own currency is a different story. Most offshore poker sites which offer their services to Australian players are spread all over the world. This might serve players for extensive player traffic and inter-cultural exchanges, but it tends to push their currency out of the way. Thus, online poker rooms normally include a currency exchange option allowing Australian players to deposit their AUS dollars and exchange them for USD or the UK pound as more standard currencies.

The Future of Online Poker in Australia

Perhaps the most honest thing to say about the future of online poker in Australia would be to say, what future? Australia doesn’t seem to have one for online poker. On the upside, Australian players are still permitted to bet on poker games in land-based establishments (depending on the state they live in), and at least there are no punishments for Australian players frequently offshore poker rooms.

However, we cannot pretend that most Aussies are just going to keep on playing at offshore poker sites. Many of the leading poker rooms will (or already have) cut Aussie players from the picture, and that only leaves unregulated, untrustworthy and unsafe poker rooms. Sure, there will always be the odd online poker site brave enough to risk the fines from Australian authorities that will accept Australian players no matter the costs, but there won’t be many of them, and Australians will find it near impossible to locate those sites in the future.

Poker players across Australia (including many celebrity poker players) are urging poker fans to fight back. Gambling is a hugely popular enterprise in Australia, and make no mistake about, Australia loves the tax from gambling, so they’ll certainly ban gambling in general. Perhaps in the future, a liberal enough government will make the bold step to regulation an Australian poker industry, based on skills games, but for the time being, not a chance.

My Final Thoughts

Playing online poker in Australia is vexing and it is a challenge, but it is not impossible. There are more than enough good offshore poker sites out there which can offer their services to a player like you. You must exercise caution and find a poker site which is legitimate, but aside from that, you should be able to be picky with where you decide to sign up.

FAQs On Australian Online Poker You May Like To Know

No. Where possible, players try and play at licensed and regulated poker rooms. Admittedly, this is going to get a lot tougher for your average Australian online poker player (because of major poker sites pulling out of the market) but playing poker at an unlicensed and unregulated poker room is nothing short of madness. You have no idea what mechanisms are in place to work against you (such as rigged games, pirated games, obscene terms and conditions regarding bonuses, and failure to pay players). This is a risk which just isn’t worth taking, no matter how much you want to play online poker.

Yes, some sites allow you to play without anyone knowing your real identity. They would generate a random nickname and allow you to access any of your chosen games without anyone knowing.

Yes, most of the time. As mentioned, Australia lets its own states decide their own gambling laws in terms of land-based gambling. With land-based “pokie” gambling as high as ever before, Australian Governments aren’t going to interfere in this. Provided that your state of residence does permit poker gambling, and many do, then you can always play poker in land-based venues, and it is perfectly legal.

Actually, no. Australia has taken a hard stand on Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. This kind of rules out many of the bitcoin poker sites which are out there, if that’s what you were thinking. Still, even without bitcoins, there are ample choices for you to play when it comes to online poker.

Many Australian players are already signed up and regular players at offshore poker sites. Their future is very much up in the air. On the one hand, they may be able to continue playing at their chosen offshore poker sites for years to come. On the other, they may be about to be unceremoniously booted out and dumped by their operator.

Our advice would be the check with customer support. Contact customer services over your chosen offshore casino and ask them if they have any plans to leave the Australian market, or to prohibit Australian from playing at their domain. Some of them may be planning on sticking around, in which case, you should stay. After all, only the operator can be punished under Australia’s new amendment, not the players.

However, it is possible that you may receive (or already have received) a letter or an e-mail from your offshore poker site, advising you to leave as they will be departing from the Australian market. If this is the case (or customer support tells you that they’ll be shutting down services to Aussies in the future), we’d advocate taking out your winnings and closing your account as soon as possible. The earlier you leave a poker room which is departing the market, the more time you will have to find a new place to play which plans to stick around.

These poker sites offer all the possibilities when it comes to table limits and buy-ins. These range from free tables and freeroll tournaments to enormous fees in order to suit everyone’s bankroll.

If you’re looking for the best real money Australian poker sites, you’ve come to the right place. Below, you’ll find a list of the top-rated online sites offering extensive action to your country.

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Our team of experts has spent countless hours sifting through the different options available looking for the poker sites with the biggest fish, the best bonuses, and that can be trusted. Without any further ado, here’s that list. Good luck!

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It’s important to point out that we keep this list as up to date as possible. Sometimes, poker sites can’t keep their act together long-term, or a new site starts to emerge as a real player. We make sure to keep that reflected on this list so that you have access to the absolute best action available. If we made this list and never updated it, it would be worthless and outdated in short order.

It’s also important to point out that no online poker site can pay to be on this list. We only give out good recommendations to sites that deserve it. This is an ethics thing for us. We care more about giving you the best recommendations than anything else.

What Makes These Australian Poker Sites the Best

We didn’t want to fire off some empty recommendations without giving you the backing and reasoning behind our picks. Below, we’ve listed the top four reasons we think these real money Australian poker sites are the best of the best. These are certainly not all of the reasons that we love these poker sites, but they’re the ones that we wanted to point out. Ultimately, it’s going to come down to what’s most important to you.

Level of Action

What if we told you we found the most amazing online poker room with the greatest graphics, the best bonuses, the coolest poker promotions, and the slickest interface ever seen? What if we told you that you could play here, but there was just one little problem? There weren’t any players. Yeah, that “amazing” online poker site would instantly crumble to garbage in your eyes, as it very well should.

Whether you’re an action junkie or a calm, cool, and coordinated player who likes to systematically pick off your opponents, you still need action. Here’s what we like to look for.

• How many cash game tables do they have running during prime time and off-peak hours?
• What limits do they have?
• Do they have sit and go tournaments that run regularly? What stakes?
• Do they have a robust multi-table tournament schedule?
• Do their tournaments have guarantees?
• Is the site filled with sharks, or are there fish floating around?
• Do they offer any mixed games or games other than hold’em?

These are a few of the questions that we feel give us a good picture of what the action is like at a real money online poker site. If you like sitting at home and playing poker by yourself or with your dog only, you probably aren’t going to like the sites we’ve recommended for you.

Trust, Reputation, and Reliability

Trust, trust, trust. This is a term you hear us say over and over again, and it’s for good reason. If you can’t trust the poker site you’re playing at, then your experience is going to be terrible even if the site never does anything to harm you. You’ll spend your days worrying if they’re scamming you or if things are legit. What you should be spending your days focusing on is how to beat your opponents and bring home the bacon (win money, for those of you that haven’t heard that phrase before).

Trust begins at the top and is reflected in a real money poker site’s reputation and their reliability. This is why we start our trust analysis with the management team and the company behind the product. Are they trustworthy? Do they have a good track record? What’s their reputation in the industry? Have they been involved in any scandals?

After we look at this, we move down to look at their processes and infrastructure. Do they have proper security measures in place? Are their banking partners reputable? Do they utilize good business practices? Do they have a history of customer complaints?

We put together all of the information we can get our hands on to determine the credibility and trustworthiness of an online poker site. If there is any hint of a problem, we’re done with the site. There are too many quality options to pick from; there’s no reason we need to slum it with an untrusted online poker site.

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How Easy the Site Is to Use

Not a lot annoys us more than an online poker site that is difficult to use. One of the main reasons that people look to play online is convenience. If you don’t live close to a poker room or don’t feel like putting on pants, you want to be able to play your favorite games, and you want it to be easy. One of the biggest aspects of this is how easy the site is to use.

Is it easy to join a cash game or a tournament? Is it easy to deposit and withdraw? How hard is it to make the bet you want to make? Is it easy to misclick? How are the animations? Is the interface distracting? Can you sort the lobby? These are just a few of the questions we get answers to when determining the user-friendliness of an online poker site.

The reason we’re so picky in this category is that we know perfection is possible. Once you’ve seen a great online poker site with a superb interface, you can never accept playing anywhere that doesn’t live up to those same standards.

Speed of Payouts

There is no excuse this late in the game for any real money online poker site to have issues paying out their customers promptly. We’ve heard every excuse in the book over the years, and surprise! None of them are any good. When we assess online poker sites in Australia, we take a solid look at how they choose to offer withdrawals and how quickly those withdrawals show up.

Additionally, we look at the reliability of these payouts. Just because a poker site claims to pay out in a certain period of time does not mean that they actually do. Just because they pay one person out at that rate once does not mean that they always have that sort of speed and reliability. These are things that we look at when we’re analyzing the speed of payouts.

We’re content with waiting a reasonable amount of time as long as the poker site is up front with how long things take and stick to the timeframes they lay out. It’s when things start showing up later than promised that we start to have real issues. We assume that would bug you just as much as it bugs us.

The Wrap-Up

Hopefully, our recommendations for the best real money Australian poker sites will help you get into the action right away. Picking out the right site for you matters, so we hope you’ve taken the criteria we laid out into account. At the end of it all, it comes down to your personal preferences and what you’re looking for. The only thing we highly recommend that you don’t waiver on or settle with is the trust, reliability, and security of the poker site you choose.

As we speak, there are fish from all around the world sitting at the tables waiting for you to come and take their money. Nice of them, yeah? The only thing left for you to do is pick out a site and get yourself into the action!