Lottoland challenges Australia’s online keno ban ahead of January deadline

The commercial stakes are unusually clear. Victoria’s regulator records that Lottoland Australia received a 20-year keno licence beginning on 15 April 2022. The licensed company changed its name to KenoGo in September 2025.⁴ A licence running to 2042 offers a long planning horizon, but the federal reform now threatens the online route through which the business reaches customers.

Australian business · Victorian licensee
KenoGo Pty Ltd, formerly Lottoland Australia Pty Ltd, holds the Victorian keno licence discussed in this case.⁴

Lottoland has already had to adapt its Australian model. Betting on lottery outcomes was prohibited from 9 January 2019, and NEXT describes the subsequent move into keno.¹⁷ The distinction matters: a company can develop a replacement product within one set of rules, invest in it and then face another change to what the law permits.

Keno involves selecting numbers and matching them against a random draw. The government’s review described online products with draws every three minutes.⁵ In its later policy response, the government argued that rapid, repeated play and gaps in existing consumer protections made online keno a danger warranting prohibition.⁶ Its case rests on the way the product can be used, alongside its lottery classification.

The new law preserves a defined category of venue-based keno. Among its conditions, customers must be at a licensed place and use electronic equipment made available there.³ This is a distinction about where and how the customer plays. The provision does not simply allow an online operator to continue because it also has a physical business address.

The policy path makes the dispute more interesting. The departmental review, published in February, recommended extending credit card restrictions, self-exclusion and advertising controls, together with further research. A blanket ban was among stakeholder suggestions, but was not one of the department’s recommendations.⁵ Parliament subsequently chose prohibition. That progression leaves a substantive debate about the evidence for the chosen response.

There was also a constitutional issue in the review itself. Some state regulators said section 92 of the Australian Constitution constrained their ability to restrict cross-border trade and called for national harm-minimisation rules.⁵ The current challenge is against Commonwealth legislation. Moving the decision to the national level has therefore produced a new legal dispute over the boundary.

According to NEXT, KenoGo’s summons relies on section 92 and targets the new keno paragraph, section 8D(2)(b), of the Interactive Gambling Act. The report does not set out the company’s detailed arguments.¹ The distinction between a discriminatory barrier to interstate trade and a legitimate regulatory restriction is the useful framework for understanding the earlier Betfair cases.

In March 2008, the High Court found Western Australian restrictions invalid to the extent they prevented customers using Betfair’s Tasmanian exchange across state borders and constrained its publication of race fields. Western Australia had invoked racing integrity concerns, but the Court found prohibition was not a proportionate response in that setting, pointing to effective, non-discriminatory regulation as an alternative.⁸

That judgment explains why Betfair’s name returns whenever Australian gambling businesses challenge barriers to digital competition. It also came with limits. In 2012, Betfair lost a separate challenge to New South Wales race-field fees. Showing that a fee absorbed more of its low-margin business’s revenue than a competitor’s was insufficient to establish the relevant constitutional discrimination.⁹

Those outcomes offer a more useful comparison than the 2008 victory alone. The present case concerns a national product restriction with a venue-based exception, rather than the same state-level barriers Betfair challenged. A difference between online and venue-based treatment is not, by itself, proof of discrimination against interstate trade. The new law’s operation and the evidence supporting the claim will matter.

Our view is that the policy question worth following is how well the distinction between channels reflects differences in risk. Mobile access can make repeated play easier to sustain, while a venue provides a different setting and opportunities for supervision. Whether those differences justify the particular restriction needs evidence. Equally, the existence of alternative safeguards does not establish that the ban must fail.

For operators and investors, the broader lesson concerns the assumptions behind a licence’s value. A long term gives certainty about one regulatory permission; it cannot by itself establish that every product or distribution channel will remain available for that period. Product development, customer acquisition and technology spending can all depend on legal definitions beyond the licence document.

The next issue to watch is the relief KenoGo seeks and the timetable for deciding it as January approaches. The reported claim focuses on the keno provision within a wider reform package.¹³ Our reading is that its significance will lie in how the court assesses the legal boundary around this product, with consequences for businesses whose investment plans depend on keeping a particular digital channel open.

Prepared with help from ChatGPT.