Australian government’s ban on gambling sites accepting credit cards and crypto is now effective. Responsible Wagering Australia (RWA) has announced that users can no longer use credit cards to pay for any online betting.

The State Government will crack down on pubs and clubs that operate as virtual 24-hour casinos in city suburbs. Eight venues in Brisbane, Logan, the Gold Coast and Townsville have licences to operate pokies until 5.30am. Their opening times vary from 8am to 10am. Another two in Brisbane and one on the Gold Coast stay open to 4.30am or 5am, again with opening times between 8am and 10am.

A group of men who ran a multi-million dollar Costa Rica-based sports betting website have been charged with illegal gambling and money laundering offenses, in the latest example of US authorities’ crackdown on internet gambling. Authorities across the US have been pursuing a mounting number of cases against internet gambling companies, and businesses that offer services such as money transfers for them, over the last 18 months.

The Korean Ministry of Information snd Communication has announced that it will toughen its monitoring measures for online gambling including poker. According to the National Police Agency, 291 online gambling sites have been requested to be blocked. The Ministry said that it would be working with related Government agencies including the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Police Agency and the Information and Communication Ethics Committee in a crackdown on online gambling, which is illegal in Korea.

Foreign casinos along Chinese borders have either been forced to shut down or go underground because of crackdowns by police and their collaboration with foreign counterparts. The number of such casinos has shrunk from 149 - many of them illegal - in 2005 to 28 now. Of those still in business, nine are in the southwestern border area with Myanmar and Vietnam and the remaining along the northern border with Russia, according to the Ministry of Public Security.