Australia Adds 10 Gambling Sites as Block List Hits 1,774

Australian internet providers have received a new request to restrict access to ten gambling domains. The action came 20 days after ACMA’s previous blocking update.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said its investigations found the sites operating in breach of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001. The regulator named Zizobet, KingAUD, Lucky Vibe, Daily Spins, Gambiva, Hot Pokies Group, Pokies99, Betcoin, TenoBet and Lightning-bet.com.

Ten Domains Enter the Latest Round

According to ACMA, Lightning-bet.com was a copycat of LightningBet, a wagering service licensed in Australia. The other nine websites were classified as illegal gambling websites, without providing any additional information in the release.

Internet Service Providers have been asked by the regulatory body to prevent access from within Australia. However, such a request would not take a website offline, but would rather limit its accessibility.

Blocking Count Rose by 23 in 20 Days

The ACMA’s current tally for its block list is 1,774 illegal gambling and affiliate websites, following the initial ISP request from November 2019. In its previous update, released on June 25, the tally was 1,751.

This represents an increase of 23 websites between the two releases, despite the fact that only ten were mentioned in the July update. The ACMA did not provide any further explanation about the difference in the new update. These figures indicate ongoing enforcement efforts even between official updates of the regulator.

More than 230 illegal services have pulled out of the Australian market since ACMA began enforcing new illegal online gambling rules in 2017.

A Licensed Brand Name Appears Again

LightningBet belongs to the register of ACMA of the authorized interactive gambling services. The register specifies that Grant Lynch is the licensee and Liquor & Gaming NSW is the licensing authority.

The naming of such a domain raises another type of threat compared to a completely independent offshore casino. A customer looking for the licensed business may instead land on a similar domain and mistake it for the registered service.

The pattern is not new. ACMA’s June blocking round included Chromabet.org and Pointsbetz.com, which the regulator identified as imitations of licensed ChromaBet and PointsBet services.

ISP Blocks Stay Central to the Response

ACMA may request ISP blocks against websites offering prohibited interactive gambling services or unlicensed regulated gambling services. Sites advertising those services may also be targeted.

The latest batch is modest in size, yet the short gap between announcements is more revealing. Australia is dealing with a recurring domain cycle rather than a fixed group of operators. For licensed brands, domain monitoring and rapid reporting now sit alongside regulatory compliance as practical market-protection work.