The Hole in Australia's Self-Exclusion Register: Keno…

On this page

Gap one: keno and lottery-type products
Gap two: who is still allowed to contact you
The awareness problem
What to do with this if you are registering
Sources

BetStop is Australia's National Self-Exclusion Register. One registration is supposed to close the door at every licensed interactive wagering service in the country, for a period the person chooses, with no option to change their mind before it expires. That last part is the design's real strength: unlike an operator-level block, it cannot be undone by a phone call on a bad night.

The statutory review, completed in February 2026, was not a hostile document. It found the register working as built and made ten recommendations aimed at awareness, circumvention and user experience. The two that matter to anyone deciding whether to register are about scope.

Gap one: keno and lottery-type products

The register covers online wagering. It does not cover lottery and lottery-type products, including keno — games where a person picks numbers and bets on them matching numbers drawn at random. The review found a person excluded from every betting site in the country could still lose up to $1,000 every three minutes on online keno, and recommended extending the register to online keno and similar products by bringing them inside the Interactive Gambling Act.

Why this matters more than it sounds: keno is not a slow game. A three-minute draw cycle with no stake ceiling is, functionally, the fast continuous product the register exists to block — it simply sits in a different legislative box because of how it is classified, not because of how it behaves.

Gap two: who is still allowed to contact you

Registration stops licensed operators from sending you marketing. The review noted that affiliate messaging sat outside the scope of the legislation — affiliate companies are not banned from messaging registered individuals. So the brand cannot email you, and a third party that makes its living sending traffic to that brand can.

The reform package addresses part of this from the other end. The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 26 August 2026, with most substantive reforms commencing on 1 January 2027. Among the measures: a ban on inducements for 14 days after signing up with a gambling company, a ban on inducements to red-flagged customers, a ban on inducements for three months after someone deregisters from BetStop, and a ban on paying staff or affiliate commissions based on consumer activity.

Read that third one twice. It exists because the moment a self-exclusion expires is the moment a returning player is most valuable and most vulnerable, and it was previously unprotected.

The awareness problem

The review found only about one in four people know BetStop exists. That single figure explains most of the recommendations, and it is the one thing a page like this can actually help with. A tool nobody has heard of is not a safety net.

What to do with this if you are registering

Register nationally, then close the side doors. BetStop handles licensed wagering. Add a bank-level gambling block for card transactions, and device-level blocking for sites outside Australian licensing, which the register was never built to reach.
Treat keno and lottery products as not covered. Until the law is extended, those accounts need separate action — the register will not close them for you.
Choose the long option. The register's value is that the period cannot be shortened. A short exclusion inherits none of that strength.
Expect the marketing gap to narrow, not vanish. The inducement bans from 1 January 2027 are a real change; "no affiliate may contact a registered person" is not yet what the law says.

If you are outside Australia, the same three questions apply to whichever register you are using: which products it covers, who may still contact you, and whether the exclusion can be lifted early. Ireland's new register is examined in the Irish exclusion register, and the UK's threshold-based checks in UK affordability checks.

Sources

Report of the statutory review of BetStop: the National Self-Exclusion Register — February 2026, ten recommendations; awareness finding
Department of Infrastructure, January 2026 — review into the regulation of online keno and foreign-matched lotteries
Addisons — Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Act 2026: Royal Assent 26 August 2026, inducement bans, commencement 1 January 2027

Read against the sources above on 27 September 2026. Where the legislation is extended to further products, this page will be revised rather than left standing.