Australian Police Overlooked NRL Sponsorship Objection

According to The Age newspaper, in order to start a prosecution against Australian sports club in sponsorship deals along with online gambling companies has not proved to be fruitful. The appeal for the prosecution came from the central government’s Department of Broadband, Communication, and Digital Economy which referred the sponsorship deals linking NRL clubs and online poker websites to the Australian Federal Police.

The Department comes under the notorious cabinet minister Mr. Conroy. The topic has its origin in the sponsorship of two NRL clubs by online poker websites. According to the Age, in the start of the season Sydney Roosters was sponsored by Full Tilt Poker. Soon the rival PokerStars planned to sponsor Cronulla Sharks. Both companies made use of the dot net advertising plan whereby the gambling is not offered straightforwardly on dot net websites which endorse the companies.

Chief Executive of NRL, Mr. Gallop signed off on the uniform contracts but after sometime Conroy’s department referred the sponsorship contracts to the Federal Police of Australia, asserting that Interactive Gaming Act 2001 forbids advertising of interactive gambling services in Australia.

Conroy authenticated that his department has come to a final verdict that the contracts were in breach of the act and both are referred to the federal police. The courts of New Zealand were also approached with the same government complaint, where the courts have ruled favoring online gambling; finding that dot net is not an encouragement to gamble.

New Zealand government’s Department of Internal Affairs brought the case in front of Justice David, which complained that TVWorks which is the owner of television stations C4 and TV3 had carried dot net play-for-free advertising for PokerStars. Senator Conroy, Assistant Treasurer Mr. Nick and Ms. Macklin, Minister for Families and Community Services claimed that Australian Government is not in favor of liberalizing online gaming comprising online poker as advocated by Productivity Commission.

The Government is not sure whether liberalizing online gaming would have advantages for Australian community which would overshadow the dangers of problem gambling along with dynamic changes of technology.

The latest assault on online gambling by Conroy has attained one thing – it has scared Mr. Gallop discouraging him from supporting more sponsorships. The Age has reported that Mr. Gallop has written to NRL Clubs that no more contracts will be accepted by the league.