GREEK sports betting group Intralot has distanced itself from a controversial plan to launch lottery tickets and electronic gaming in Australia via mobile phones.
Athens-based Intralot is one of the world's largest players in fixed-odds sports betting and plans to open a Melbourne office in a bid to capitalise on the Victorian Government's review of gaming licences.
The head of Intralot's Australian subsidiary, and former Victorian Treasurer Tony Sheehan, said yesterday the group would be bound by current federal laws which make using SMS for gaming and lotteries impossible.
Intralot uses SMS technology for gaming in other eastern European countries but Mr Sheehan said the company's "operations were different in different countries" depending on what was legal in those jurisdictions.
Mr Sheehan said both federal and state ministers had aired concerns about the practice and claimed that SMS gaming was not the focus of Intralot in Australia.
Mr Sheehan refused to disclose whether Intralot had applied for gaming licences in any Australian state but he said it had submitted submissions to the three government discussion papers on sports betting, wagering, and keno.
Details of some of Intralot's submissions have reportedly included plans to offer lotteries and gaming via mobile phone technology.
Victorian Gaming Minister John Pandazopolous said under the lottery licence review currently under way, lottery games or distribution methods that created continuous forms of play would not be approved.
Mr Pandazopolous also said that lottery games or distribution methods with a strong appeal to children under 18 would not be approved.
"Lotteries are a very low-risk form of gambling," he said. "However, all proposals for new products or new distribution arrangements must be accompanied by a responsible gambling strategy as well as detailed information as to how underage players would be precluded."
The Government is assessing a shortlist of registrants invited to formally apply for a public lotteries licence or licences as the process enters its final phase.
source : Herald Sun
