ACMA Website Blocking Hits 1,788 as Legal Options Stay Zero

Australia‘s communications regulator has added two more casino brands to its blocklist. Casea and Crown96 both breached the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, so internet providers across the country must now cut off access. ACMA has leaned on website blocking as its main weapon against offshore operators chasing Australian players. The list now runs to 1,788 domains, and it keeps getting longer.

Casea and Crown96 Land on the Blocklist

Both brands offered casino products that Australian law does not permit. Neither held a licence to serve players in the country. The regulator investigated each one, confirmed the breach, and issued the order to internet service providers.

The blocklist has grown steadily since enforcement began in 2017. It now covers 1,788 illegal gambling and affiliate websites. Another 230 services packed up and left the Australian market on their own, deciding the fight was not worth the trouble.

How ACMA Runs Its Website Blocking List

The regulator maintains the list by hand, updating it as investigations close. ACMA then sends website blocking instructions to internet providers, who apply the restriction at the network level. Australians who type one of those domains into a browser hit a dead end.

That sounds tidy on paper. In practice, every entry means a separate investigation, a separate finding, and a separate round of paperwork. The process moves at the speed of a regulator, not the speed of the internet.

Scale is the other issue. Blocking two brands at a time works fine as a headline, but thousands of offshore sites accept Australian sign-ups right now. The regulator picks off the ones that surface in complaints and investigations, which leaves plenty untouched.

Mirror Domains Keep the Cycle Going

Closing a domain does not close an operator. Most blocked brands reappear within days at a slightly different address, with the same lobby, the same games, and the same customer base. Players follow them through search results, forums, and messaging apps.

Critics of the approach point to countries that have blocked hundreds of thousands of domains and still see illegal sites reaching their citizens. Volume alone has not solved this anywhere. Australia is working through the same maths, one domain at a time.

There is also a reputational side effect. Every block teaches a slice of the audience how to find the next mirror, and word travels quickly in player communities. Enforcement pushes the market further underground rather than shrinking it.

Australians Have No Licensed Option

Here is the part that makes the whole exercise awkward. Online casino games remain illegal to offer in Australia, so no domestic alternative exists for players to move to. The regulator warns people away from offshore sites but has nothing to point them toward.

That gap hands the grey market something close to a monopoly. Australians who want to spin a slot online land on offshore operators by default, because there is nowhere else to go. Their money then sits with companies that answer to a licence somewhere else, if they answer to one at all.

Each fresh round of website blocking from ACMA removes a few of those operators from view. It does nothing about the demand that keeps sending players offshore in the first place. Until the underlying policy shifts, the regulator stays in catch-up mode.

Fines and Influencer Warnings Widen the Net

Domain blocks are not the only tool in play. The regulator hit Tabcorp with a penalty of roughly $1.9 million over advertising breaches, after the operator sent promotional text messages to customers who had already self-excluded. That case targeted a licensed company rather than an offshore one.

ACMA has also gone after the people who promote illegal operators to Australian audiences. Online personalities with large followings have received formal warnings about pushing unlicensed gambling content to their fans. Cutting the marketing pipeline slows the flow of players toward blocked brands, so the regulator treats promotion as part of the same problem.

What Happens Next

Casea and Crown96 will probably resurface under new domains before long. ACMA will investigate those too, add them to its website blocking list, and the counter will tick past 1,788. Nothing in the current framework breaks that loop.

Australian players still get a clear signal out of all this. Sites on the list are there for a reason, and the operators behind them have already shown they will ignore local rules. Anyone gambling online in Australia should at least know which side of the line a site sits on.