Legal Betting Sites in Australia

Betting in Australia has blossomed into an incredibly popular pastime, but when you’re punting, it’s important to know that you are putting your money into a legal betting site. On this page, we will take a look at everything you need to know about legal betting sites, from which of them we rate the highest, through to tax implications and safe gambling.

In this section, we will take a look at a couple of different things. Firstly, we’ll take a look at the role of the betting site in ensuring they are operating legally, while after that we will dive into your own responsibilities and requirements as a bettor.

Legal Betting Regulations for Betting Sites

It probably won’t surprise you to know that there are a few hoops that need to be jumped through before someone can legally open up a betting site in Australia. In order to operate legally, bookmakers have to obtain certain licenses from betting regulators.

Generally, betting sites will outline where they are registered at the bottom of the site. There are a few different places bookies might be regulated by, but among the common ones that you will see are the Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission, the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (typically for Victorian betting sites), and Liquor and Gaming NSW.

You can also double-check whether a betting site that you are using is legal through other means. For example, the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) has a full list of legal gambling operators on their website, with the list also outlining which licensing authority they are registered with.

Legal Betting Regulations for Bettors

There are also a couple of requirements for you as the bettor in order to legally bet in Australia, and these are pretty straightforward to follow.

For starters, you need to be at least 18 years of age in order to even legally open up an account with a licensed betting site in Australia – as promised, this one is pretty easy. In order to access your betting account and place bets, you also need to be located in Australia, so you won’t be able to legally punt with Australian betting sites while you’re abroad.

Finally, and this one pertains to a responsibility which applies to both you and the betting site, they need to be able to obtain proof of identity from you – and you need to provide it. This is why you’ll need to verify your identity when you open up a new betting account, with this safeguarding you and the bookie from a few things, like ensuring that you are at least 18 years of age, that you are not operating with multiple betting accounts on the same site, or that you are not currently registered with a company like BetStop, which makes it illegal to accept bets from you.

In this section, let’s take a little look at some of the reasons why it might be important to use legal gambling platforms. After all, you might be thinking that at the end of the day, why should you care about the betting site itself – if it provides you with markets to bet on, that’s all you need, right?

Not quite. It is absolutely pivotal to ensure that when you are betting in Australia, you are doing so on a legal betting site. If you do not, it can potentially have significant negative repercussions for you.

By betting with a licensed bookmaker in Australia, you are ensuring that the business you are dealing with is legally required to act in a certain manner. While plenty of people have probably made complaints before about betting sites banning them from bonuses, making it difficult to withdraw money or whatever else it might be, if a bookmaker is legal then they are obligated to essentially do what they say they will – e.g. pay you out if you win. 

There is nothing to stop an illegal betting disappearing into the sunset, blocking you from your account or basically doing anything that will make it hard or impossible for you to access your money. Basically, once you’ve deposited with an illegal betting site, you’re at their mercy. Betting with an illegal betting site also means you are essentially supporting and funding a potentially nefarious business.

Another really notable benefit of using a legal gambling platform is that it gives you access to a range of different responsible gambling tools. Things like deposit limits and self-exclusion have become widely available in recent years – but only on legal betting sites. You won’t find these important tools on illegal betting sites, but with bookies now required to have certain tools they are a staple of every legal betting site in Australia now. In the next section, we will take a deeper look at what kinds of responsible gambling tools you can access, and what they can do for you. 

With an increasing focus on gambling responsibly in recent years, betting sites have been forced to add certain responsible gambling tools, and aside from being generally pretty useful, these also go a long way to highlighting the legitimacy of a betting site.

One of the most common responsible gambling tools that you will find is a deposit limit. Generally, you will be asked if you want to set a deposit limit when you sign up with a new betting site, as well as what that limit is. Put simply, this prevents you from going overboard by limiting the amount that you can deposit within a certain timeframe. You might want to set this limit at $100 over a one-month period, or you might want to set it at a certain amount over a one-week period. Typically you’ll have a few different options.

Betting sites in Australia also need to allow a self-exclusion option for their customers. As the name suggests, this entails locking yourself out of your account so that you are not legally allowed to access it for a specified period of time. This can be a good idea if you feel that you are losing control of your betting. Note that given the number of betting sites that there in Australia, it’s obviously quite easy to simply use another one, so BetStop can come in handy if you want to stop entirely for a period of time given it’s a national registry.

Relatively recently, the laws also changed in Australia to require betting sites and any advertisements they might make include one of a certain number of different warnings. That is why you will likely have noticed on many licensed betting sites – as well as ads on TV, social media and wherever else you may see them – certain taglines such as ‘Chances Are You’re About to Lose’, ‘Think: Is This Really a Bet You Want to Place’, and even ‘What Are You Prepared to Lose Today: Set a Deposit Limit’, the latter of these referencing the aforementioned responsible gambling tool that legal betting sites are now obligated to provide.

Finally, you will also note that legal betting sites – as a matter of law – now provide information about gambling support services. These are things like phone numbers to speak to a professional about your habits, as well as certain websites which can also be beneficial for vulnerable punters.

Usually you will find this information towards the bottom of a betting site, right near the aforementioned information about where a betting site is licensed and regulated. These responsible gambling tools are now a legal requirement for betting sites in Australia, so if they offer them you can generally be confident that you’re dealing with a legal betting site – bookies trying to slip under the radar wouldn’t be bothering with them.

Tax is one of those things that nobody really likes talking about – well, maybe accountants do…do they? – but which everybody has to deal with. In this section, we will take a look at the various tax-related implications of legal betting.

Fortunately, from an individual perspective you generally don’t have to worry about tax when it comes to betting in Australia. Of course, it wouldn’t make sense to have to pay tax on your winnings if you aren’t getting it back on your losses, but even for overall winning punters, there is no legal requirement to pay tax on those winnings made with licensed betting sites.

But while that is the case for the vast majority of punters, there is one small caveat that should be mentioned. While you do not have to declare your gambling winnings in nearly all case, if you are considered a professional gambler who is running a gambling-based business, then you do. 

But obviously, that is only the case for a tiny number of people and presumably the vast majority of readers, if not all of them, have taxable day jobs, with gambling serving as a pastime on the side.

It’s not always entirely clear where the line is drawn in terms of what constitutes a professional gambler, but for most people it will be abundantly clear that they are not. If, for example, you had employees on a pay roll as part of your gambling operations, however, this would be a sign that you are doing it professionally rather than as a form of entertainment as it is generally treated by the ATO.

Each case is, however, assessed individually. As we are neither lawyers nor accountants we cannot provide specific information about individual cases, but if you think you are somewhere around the blurry line of amateur and professional there are plenty of resources out there to help, while tax professionals will also be clear things up in you’re unsure.

By and large, however, gambling is viewed as a form of entertainment in Australia, rather than as a profession. As a result, the vast, vast majority of punters do not need to worry about declaring their winnings, if they are lucky enough to have them, as taxable income.

Below, we take a look at a few more legal sports betting sites that we recommend checking out.

ChromaBet

ChromaBet launched along with a seemingly endless list of other betting sites in Australia in 2024, ticking a bunch of boxes along the way without standing out too dramatically from the crowd. With solid odds, a decent range of markets and a simple interface, ChromaBet is a new bookie certainly worth checking out – although limited payment options means you’ll have to settle for debit card betting.

ChaseBet

ChaseBet popped up in 2023 as a decent new betting site with a focus on racing, and have continued to grow since then. While they could have more sports markets, they have solid odds on racing, a quality website and perhaps best of all, live streaming of certain racing events – a rarity for such a new bookie.

EliteBet

Elite by name and pretty good by nature too, EliteBet is a really solid small betting site with a lot to like about. Their racing section makes them one of the best legal horse racing betting sites, with detailed info about runners, hot bets to follow, as well as a some of the better betting bonuses in Australia and the availability of same race and same game multis.

As we near the end of this page about legal betting sites in Australia, we are going to take a look at some of the most frequently asked questions that we receive about licensed bookmakers.