Australian Poker Sites

The last five years has seen a real poker explosion in Australia mainly due to Aussie Joe Hachem taking home the World Series of Poker Main Event bracelet in 2005. He became the first Australian player to win the World Championship and ignited a huge amount of interest in the game Down Under.

Since then, poker has grown more and more popular and with major tournaments such as The Aussie Millions attracting players from around the globe, there's no reason to suspect that the game won't continue to be a huge success for years to come.

This sudden surge in popularity has forced online poker rooms to look to accomodate Aussie players in terms of the tournaments that they offer and the deposit options available. All of the Australian poker sites listed below will allow players to deposit in ASD, although the US dollar will still be the main currency used when wagering.

Australian Poker Sites

The Aussie Millions:

The Aussie Millions is Australia's answer to the World Series of Poker. It is Australia's number one poker tournament and is now viewed as the sixth largest tournament in the world - an impressive feat considering that it only ran for the first time in 1998.

Held at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, the tournament comes with a buy-in of AUD$10.5k and offers a guaranteed first prize of $2 million AUD. In 2009, the Aussie Millions attracted most of the world's best players who competed in seventeen different events including the world's largest cash game where the buy-in level was set at a huge AUD$1,000,000.

The Australia New Zealand Poker Tour:

The growth of poker in Australia has convinced Pokerstars to become a lot more active in the region. The ANZPT was launched and hosts a number of different tournaments throughout Australia and New Zealand which players can win a seat at via a number of different satellites hosted on Pokerstars.

The inaugural ANZPT (run in 2009) attracted over 1,300 players and paid out prizes worth just under USD$3,000,000. Events were held in Melbourne, Queensland, Adelaide and Sydney with Karl Krautschneider winning the main event and taking home USD$170,000 for his troubles.

Gambling in Australia:

The Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 has made it illegal for software providers to supply online games (including poker) to Australian citizens. However, an important subtext of this is that nowhere in the bill does it state that it is illegal for Aussie citizens to play online poker so any Australians who are able to find a game of poker can take part it in it without fear of any backlash.

It's a very similar situation to what we've seen in the US, although the Australian government has been a lot more lax about enforcing it. As a result, it is much easier for Australians to deposit and withdraw funds from an online poker room, since the legislation doesn't prohibit financial institutions from processing online gambling transactions.

For more information about the state of Gambling in Australia, we would recommend that you check out the following:

• Interactive Gambling Act 2001 - The official site discussing Australian legislation.
• Gambling Policy in Australia - The current stance of the Australian Governemnt towards online gambling.