The Australian Federal Court has fined the operator of Redraw Poker AU$5m (US$3.4m) for offering unlicensed online gambling to people in the country. The financial penalty for Diverse Link Pty Ltd comes following Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigations and civil action.

The Redraw Poker platform was up and running between March 2021 and April 2022, with total fiat currency deposits reaching AU$4.2m (US$2.8m). It is unclear as to how much the Bitcoin deposits were in total.

will serve as a deterrent to any other illegal operators

While Federal Court Justice David Thomas isn’t optimistic about actually receiving the financial penalty amount from Redraw, he believes it will serve as a deterrent to any other illegal operators.

Users of Redraw Poker originally went to the authorities to complain about the platform. One of them claimed the operator did not have any responsible gambling features and allowed people to make numerous accounts using false identities.

Commenting on their experience, one player said: “I have lost thousands at this site and asked to be banned multiple times but they can’t honor requests or just don’t have the care or capacity.”