888Poker Folds its cards in Australia

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Mar 3, 2021

20 January 2017

Company to exit with effect from January 16

Australian online punters will see another quality online gambling operator leave their shores on January 16 when 888Poker executes its decision to withdraw from the market due to federal legislative amendments to the Interactive Gaming Act and the threat of stiff enforcement action with harsh penalties for unlicensed operators.

Players have been informed that they should close their accounts, withdraw any positive balances, and deregister from any tournaments they may have signed up for before January 16.

888 is not the first to leave, earlier this year Intertain’s Vera&John online casino headed for the exit.

PokerStars, and indeed its parent group Amaya, could also be among those planning an exit in the future.

InfoPowa readers may recall that during an investor call in November Amaya CFO Dan Sebag revealed that his company was studying Australian legislative developments and may have to abandon the country if changes are made to its online gambling law.

888Poker has already announced that it is to exit the Slovenian market, following the departure of PokerStars last summer.

Brian Cullingworth

Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.

We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.

His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.


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