The short answer
Whether online pokies are legal in Australia depends on who you ask about: the business offering the game, or the person playing it. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001, usually shortened to the IGA and enforced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), prohibits providing an “interactive casino service” to customers who are physically in Australia. That covers online pokies, roulette, blackjack, baccarat and every other online game of chance played for money.
The IGA does not make it an offence for those customers to play. An Australian who signs up to an offshore pokies site is not committing an offence under the Act; the operator that accepts Australian customers is the party the law targets. That is also why every site on this page is based overseas. There is no Australian licence under which online pokies can be offered, so a site claiming to be “Australian licensed for online pokies” is telling you something that cannot be true.
This page is general information about how the law is structured, not legal advice about your situation.
What is allowed and what is not
- Licensed in Australia and legal to offer: online sports and racing wagering placed before an event starts, and lotteries. These operators hold a state or territory licence and must follow national consumer protection rules.
- Prohibited from being offered to people in Australia: online casino games including pokies, online in-play betting on sport, and wagering services that do not hold an Australian licence.
- The player’s position: using any of those services is not an offence under the IGA.
Pokies in a pub, club or casino are a separate system, licensed venue by venue under each state’s own gaming laws. The same pokie that is legal on a club floor cannot legally be offered to you through a website, which is the source of most of the confusion around this question. The Lightning Link guide walks through a well-known example.
Legal for the player is not the same as protected
Three things change when you play at a site that holds no Australian licence.
- No Australian regulator will take your complaint. If a withdrawal is refused or an account is closed, your route is the operator’s own support desk, or an overseas body if the operator names one. Many offshore sites name no licensing body at all. The list at the top of this page is sorted so that any operator publishing a regulator comes first, and shows “Not stated” for the rest.
- The site can be blocked. Since late 2019 ACMA has asked Australian internet providers to block illegal gambling and affiliate websites, and it publishes the blocked list. Blocked brands often reappear on a new address, but access to the cashier in the meantime is not guaranteed.
- Australian safeguards do not follow you. Licensed Australian wagering providers must offer deposit limits, activity statements and a link to BetStop, the national self-exclusion register that opened in August 2023. Offshore pokies sites are outside all of that.
Two related questions have their own pages: whether pokies winnings are taxed, and where to complain and how to spot a rigged or scam site.
Payment rules worth knowing
From 11 June 2024, licensed Australian online wagering providers may not accept credit cards, credit-related products or digital currency such as crypto. Offshore pokies sites are outside the licensing system that rule applies to, which is why some of them still list crypto or cards; the ban shows the direction of Australian policy rather than a rule those sites follow. Banks add their own controls on top: several let you switch on a gambling transaction block in the banking app, and some decline card payments to gambling merchants outright.
For the methods that work at the sites we track, see PayID pokies sites and bank transfer and Osko. If you have been told to pay by PayPal, read why no pokies site here takes PayPal first.
How to use the list on this page
A licence from an overseas authority is not an Australian licence and does not give you a local complaints route. It does give you a licence number you can look up, and sometimes a body you can write to. When an operator names a regulator, the review page shows it with a verification link where one exists; when it names none, we say so rather than guess. Licensing is one of the inputs to each site’s score, as set out in how we rate pokies sites.
If gambling is costing more than you planned
Gambling Help Online is free and confidential, 24 hours a day, on 1800 858 858 or at gamblinghelponline.org.au. Our responsible gambling page lists the limits and self-exclusion tools available at the sites we track.
