Northern Territory of Australia Is Considering Revolutionary Regulation of Crypto Gambling

“It’s apparent from the draft framework that what they (Australia) are looking at is gambling using cryptocurrency,” says Julian Hoskins, the founder of the gaming legal and regulatory consultancy firm Senet.

The Northern Territory Racing Commission (NTRC) of Australia is currently in discussion with its gambling licensees about a potential proposal to include cryptocurrency wagering as a part of the regulated gambling industry.

The majority of gambling legislation in Australia are state-level, not federal. The NTRC is in charge of overseeing any gaming and wagering establishments that choose to apply for licenses in the Northern Territory (NT), including significant international bookmakers like Betfair, Entain Group, Draft Kings, and Sportsbet.

Currently, the NTRC has given licensees a confidential paper requesting for input on how the regulatory landscape may appear to begin crypto wagering in the NT.

Julian Hoskins, the founder of Senet, one of Australia’s top gaming legal and regulatory assistance businesses, had access to the private paper and spoke in a recent interview about what the NTRC is currently looking for:

It states that in order to accept cryptocurrencies for placing wagers or paying out salaries, a licensee—for instance, a sports bookmaker with a license in the Northern Territory—must first obtain permission to do so. Additionally, there are some limitations that come with that.

Now that it’s evident from the draft framework that they’re focusing at cryptocurrency wagering rather than trading into fiat, he continued, The two financial assets won’t be convertible for gambling purposes, so gamblers will probably need to place fiat and cryptocurrency bets separately on a single site, he said.

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Despite the fact that it is currently difficult to estimate the likelihood of such a transition, Hoskins stated that “given the popularity of crypto, I would think that this would be highly popular as an alternative to fiat.” It might have a big impact, in my opinion.

He went on to add that if the Northern Territory’s execution of this technique went as intended, other state gaming regulators would undoubtedly follow.

Hoskins continued by saying that stringent identification guidelines have also been proposed in order to adhere to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations. Since prizes must be transmitted “back to the same wallet” that made the first payment, players’ cryptocurrency wallet addresses will probably need to be verified.

“According to the draft framework, they’ll require a crypto wallet verification. As a result, it needs to be registered and cross-checked against a customer’s identification. Additionally, the client must prove ownership of the wallet “said he.

Hoskins said that the NTRC has recommended monthly cryptocurrency deposit limits of 2,000 Australian dollars, or roughly $1,300, with a maximum bet of 5,000 Australian dollars, or roughly $3,500, every month, for the first 12 months.

The lawyer for the gambling sector also described the legal requirement for a local gambling organization to maintain cryptocurrency wallets with adequate assets to fully collateralize consumer wager amounts, as is typical in fiat-based gambling.

Hoskins said that the NTRC of Australia is currently thinking about these issues when he said that he was unsure of “how it would be addressed” in reference to the tax consequences of using volatile crypto assets for gaming.

The NTRC appears to have drastically changed its stance on cryptocurrencies given that it previously ordered gaming companies like Neds to “halt and desist” Bitcoin (BTC) wagering in 2018.

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In a recent interview, Jamie Nettleton, a partner at the Sydney-based company law firm Addisons, emphasized the significance of leaving the NTRC.

The NTRC consultation paper, according to him, is the first indication that an Australian gambling regulator is open to looking into the use of cryptocurrency.

Australians who want to use cryptocurrency for gaming must currently do so outside of Australia with a third party who will probably do it illegally ( at least from the perspective of Australian gambling law.). This essay is a pleasant change of pace.

The newly elected Australian Labor Party (ALP) formally published their cryptocurrency regulatory plan earlier this week. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has started a project called “token mapping” that aims to “identify how crypto assets and related services could be regulated.”

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