Federal Court Orders $24.24 Million in Penalties for Illegal Online Poker: ACMA v Jones (No 7) [2026] FCA 860
6 July 2026: Interactive Gambling Act enforcement
The Federal Court has brought to a close the first civil penalty proceedings ever commenced under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (Cth) (IGA). It has done so at scale. In Australian Communications and Media Authority v Jones (No 7) [2026] FCA 860, Rangiah J ordered pecuniary penalties totalling $24.24 million against the operators and a promoter of prohibited online poker services marketed to Australians under the names PPPfish, Shuffle Gaming and Redraw Poker.
Combined with the $5 million penalty imposed against Diverse Link Pty Ltd in an earlier stage of the same proceedings in March 2023, the total penalties in this litigation now stand at $29.24 million. For anyone operating, promoting, facilitating or building technology for online gaming products with an Australian audience, this decision is required reading.
The penalties at a glance
The Court ordered penalties for contraventions of s 15(2A) of the IGA as follows: Brisbane Poker Pty Ltd, $15 million; Rhys Edward Jones (director), $9 million; and Brenton Lee Buttigieg, $240,000 for aiding and abetting the provision of the services. The Court also made injunctions restraining Mr Jones from providing a prohibited interactive gambling service, and restraining Mr Buttigieg from aiding or abetting the provision of such a service, each for a period of five years. Mr Jones and Brisbane Poker were additionally ordered to pay ACMA’s costs of the proceedings.
Background: a four-year enforcement campaign
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) commenced the proceedings in April 2022 following an investigation into online poker services offered to Australian consumers. The services allowed members of the public to play online poker against other players using virtual chips. Those chips could be purchased for real money. Critically, they could also be sold or redeemed for real money.
That virtual chip structure was central to the case. Online poker sits squarely within the definition of a prohibited interactive gambling service under the IGA, and structuring the product around an in-game currency did not take it outside the prohibition. Where a virtual token is purchased with money and is convertible back into money, the “game” is gambling in substance, whatever the interface calls the chips.
The scale of the conduct informed the penalty. Close to 30,000 deposits worth more than $7.2 million were made through the platforms, generating profits in the order of $4.2 million. The conduct was found to be deliberate and commercially motivated, and it continued after ACMA had begun investigating. Rather than closing the services down, users were moved between brands so that the same business could keep operating.
In November 2025, the Court found that Mr Jones and Brisbane Poker Pty Ltd had provided prohibited interactive gambling services in contravention of s 15(2A) of the IGA. Mr Buttigieg admitted contravening the same provision by aiding and abetting the provision of the services. The July 2026 decision, the seventh judgment in the proceedings, dealt with penalty. A companion judgment, ACMA v Jones (No 8) [2026] FCA 861, was delivered the same day. Final orders, including the injunctions and costs, sit across the two.
Why the penalties are significant
Four features of the outcome stand out for operators, promoters and their advisers.
1. Personal liability is real, and it is large
The $9 million penalty against Mr Jones personally is a striking figure. The corporate veil offers no practical shelter where an individual is the directing mind of a prohibited service. Regulators pleading against both the company and the individuals behind it is now the standard playbook. We see the same pattern across ACCC, ASIC and AUSTRAC enforcement. Courts are willing to impose penalties on individuals at a scale designed to remove any commercial upside from the contravening conduct.
2. Accessorial liability captures promoters and facilitators
Mr Buttigieg was not the operator. He promoted the services through a private Facebook group with more than 2,200 members, and profited by $44,400, a fraction of the benefit derived by Mr Jones and Brisbane Poker. His $240,000 penalty and five-year restraint flowed from aiding and abetting the provision of the services. Affiliates, marketers, streamers, payment facilitators and technology providers who knowingly support a prohibited gambling service face genuine personal exposure under the IGA’s civil penalty regime. “I only promoted it” is not a defence; it is the contravention.
3. An agreed penalty is a starting point, not an outcome
ACMA and Mr Buttigieg jointly proposed a penalty of $120,000. Rangiah J declined to adopt it and doubled the figure to $240,000, on the basis that the proposed amount would not adequately deter conduct of that kind. Mr Buttigieg had knowingly promoted an illegal gambling service over a period of months for personal financial gain. Practitioners negotiating agreed civil penalty outcomes with any regulator should take the point: joint submissions carry weight, but general deterrence remains the Court’s to assess.
4. Virtual currencies do not launder the product
The virtual chip model in this case has obvious parallels in the crypto and web3 gaming space. Sweepstakes casinos, play-to-earn products, token-based poker rooms and social casinos with secondary markets all raise the same substance-over-form question the Court answered here. If value goes in and value comes out, the product will be characterised by what it does, not what it is called. Operators building tokenised gaming products for a global audience need Australian-specific advice before a single Australian customer is onboarded. Geoblocking and terms-of-service disclaimers are rarely sufficient on their own.
Why a State gaming licence does not help online
A common objection at this point is that gaming is plainly licensed in Australia: clubs and hotels operate electronic gaming machines, and the casinos operate under State legislation. Both are true, and neither assists an online operator.
Licences under the Gaming Machine Act 1991 (Qld), the Casino Control Act 1991 (Vic) and their equivalents authorise gaming conducted at a licensed venue. The IGA accommodates that through s 8B: a gaming service is an “excluded gaming service” to the extent that it is provided to customers who are physically present in a public place, such as a shop, club or casino. That is why an electronic gaming machine on a club floor, or a gaming table at Crown or The Star, falls outside the prohibition, notwithstanding that the equipment is electronic, networked and server-based.
Once the customer is at home on a phone, that exclusion falls away. No Australian jurisdiction, whether Commonwealth, State or Territory, can licence online casino-style gaming, including online poker and online pokies, for customers in Australia. The only interactive products capable of being licensed are the “regulated interactive gambling services” identified in s 8E: telephone betting, excluded wagering (racing and pre-match sports betting) and excluded lotteries. Since 2017, s 15AA has separately made it a contravention to provide a regulated interactive gambling service to customers in Australia without the relevant State or Territory licence.
Nor does the skill element in poker assist. The definition of “gambling service” in s 4 expressly captures a service for the conduct of a game played for money or anything else of value where the game is one of chance or of mixed chance and skill. The argument that poker is a game of skill has no work to do under the Act.
ACMA’s enforcement posture
ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin described the outcome as a warning that offering online poker to Australians carries “serious consequences for those who breach the law”, and confirmed the regulator will continue pursuing services targeting Australian consumers. The message is consistent with ACMA’s broader trajectory: it has moved from website-blocking requests and formal warnings toward full-scale Federal Court litigation with penalties in the tens of millions, and it is prepared to run long, multi-judgment proceedings to get there. This matter took more than four years and eight judgments from commencement to final orders.
The decision also lands in a period of intensifying communications-sector enforcement generally, alongside ACMA’s anti-scam SMS regime, the SMS Sender ID Register and its ongoing Spam Act penalty program. The regulator’s appetite and resourcing for litigation should not be underestimated.
Practical takeaways for operators and their advisers
First, if a product involves any wagering-like mechanic accessible to Australians, whether poker, casino-style games or token systems with buy-in and cash-out, it needs an IGA characterisation analysis before launch, not after a s 15(2A) letter arrives. Second, directors and senior managers should assume personal exposure and structure their governance and sign-off processes accordingly. Third, anyone in the promotion or facilitation chain, from affiliate marketers to payment and platform providers, should conduct due diligence on gambling-adjacent clients, because accessorial liability was squarely enforced in this case. Finally, offshore incorporation is not a shield: liability turns on the Australian-customer link in s 8, which is established where any or all of the customers of the service are physically present in Australia.
Our team advises on gambling and gaming characterisation issues at the intersection of technology law, cryptocurrency law and AML/CTF compliance, including token-based gaming products, sweepstakes models and offshore platform structures with Australian users.
Frequently asked questions
Is online poker illegal in Australia?
Providing online poker to people in Australia is prohibited under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (Cth). The prohibition applies to the provider of the service, wherever it is based. Licensed wagering on sports and racing under state and territory regimes remains lawful, but online casino-style games, including poker played for money or money’s worth, are prohibited interactive gambling services.
Can you get a licence for online poker or online pokies in Australia, like a casino or a licensed club?
No. State and territory licences, such as those under the Gaming Machine Act 1991 (Qld) or the Casino Control Act 1991 (Vic), authorise gaming conducted at a physical venue, and the IGA excludes those services from the prohibition because the customer is physically present in a public place (s 8B). No Australian jurisdiction can licence online poker, online pokies or online casino games for customers located in Australia. The only interactive services capable of being licensed are wagering on racing and sport placed before the event begins, lotteries and telephone betting.
What was ACMA v Jones (No 7) about?
It was the penalty judgment in Federal Court proceedings ACMA commenced in April 2022 against the operators and a promoter of the PPPfish, Shuffle Gaming and Redraw Poker online poker services. Following liability findings in November 2025, the Court ordered $24.24 million in penalties, five-year injunctions and costs against Brisbane Poker Pty Ltd, its director Rhys Edward Jones and Brenton Lee Buttigieg.
Can individuals be personally penalised under the Interactive Gambling Act?
Yes. In this case the company’s director was personally ordered to pay $9 million, and a person who aided and abetted the provision of the services was ordered to pay $240,000 and restrained for five years. Both operators and those who assist or promote prohibited services face personal civil penalty exposure.
Does using virtual chips or tokens instead of cash avoid the IGA?
No. The services in this case used virtual chips that could be purchased and sold for real money, and the Court treated them as prohibited gambling services. The characterisation turns on substance: where real value enters and exits the game, an in-game currency will not take the product outside the Act.
Sources and further reading
Australian Communications and Media Authority v Jones (No 7) [2026] FCA 860 and Australian Communications and Media Authority v Jones (No 8) [2026] FCA 861 (Federal Court of Australia) · ACMA media release, 6 July 2026 · Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (Cth)
Disclaimer: This article is general information only and is not legal advice. It is current as at 25 July 2026. If your business offers, promotes or facilitates gaming or wagering products accessible to Australian consumers, contact us for advice specific to your circumstances.