Speaking at Sydney’s Regulating the Game conference on Tuesday (11 March), Michael Phelan, who served as CEO of the ACIC between 2017 and 2022, told attendees that a “happy equilibrium” must be found to protect both players and operators.
He said: “The issue is that if the market or taxation gets to a point beyond the equilibrium – if you get to a point where you tax the industry so much and you overregulate – then people will look to other markets to go to and we’ve seen that happen in [the Australian tobacco] industry where regulation falls off a cliff and you have zero visibility.”
Phelan cited Australia’s growing “tobacco wars” which has seen stringent regulations and excises applied to tobacco products, leading to organised crime groups flooding the market with illegal produ..