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Let's start with the good news first: If you want to bet on sports or horse racing in the Northern Territory, you have many options. This is Australia's third-largest state, and its residents call themselves “Top Enders”. Like other states, the Northern Territory has its own Parliament, meaning it can make its own laws as long as they don't conflict with federal regulations.
This also applies to gambling and betting: Since 1983, NT bookmakers have been able to operate legally, and this state alone has more than a dozen operators to choose from. Some of these are quite familiar names: if we had compiled a list of the best betting sites in Australia, many of the NT bookmakers would be on it.
The bad news is that it is quite difficult to choose between them. If you want the best possible experience, you should choose the best Australian betting site. However, the multitude of both local and international options will make it difficult to choose. In this article we prepared to help you, we will first share a list of the best NT betting sites.
But this will be just the beginning: there are other things you should know about NT bookmakers. Below, you can find the most important of them. Once you've finished reading, you'll easily be able to find which NT bookmakers are best for you.
| Province / State Name | Northern Territory |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | NT |
| Population | 250,398 as of March 2022 |
| Biggest cities | Darwin, Alice Springs, Palmerston |
| Popular sports |
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| Best clubs |
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You can see an up-to-date list of betting sites on the NTG Racing Commission's official website. This list is updated regularly and also contains the companies that the licensees are affiliated with. As of 2002, NT bookmakers operating under license in this state include:
The NT bookmakers list also includes websites that have not yet been trademarked, so we can expect 3-4 different sites to be added to it shortly. You will see that some of the brands here are also on our own bookmakers list. However, our list also includes brands not mentioned here. This is actually an advantage, and we'll explain what it means in more detail below.
The Northern Territory has the distinction of being the Australian state with the largest number of bookmaker licenses. There's a simple reason for this: in this state, the things you need to do to get a license are pretty simple. There is almost no unnecessary bureaucracy, and the NT Racing Commission controls the whole process from start to finish. Other states may require licenses from sports controlling bodies in addition to official commissions. In the Northern Territory, it is possible to obtain an NT bookmakers license with a budget of approximately 25,000 AUD. This is also why the list above is unusually long: most operators choose Northern Territory for obtaining a license.
The Northern Territory made sports betting legal in 1984. This happened with the “Racing and Betting Regulations Act” and this law is still in effect, only undergoing some changes over time. The law simply states that sports betting is legal, and the NT Racing Commission will issue the necessary license for this business. It also draws the basic framework of the licensing and regulation process. Compared to other states, it's a simple and short law, and that's why new bookmakers AUS in NT are so numerous: the licensing process requires almost no bureaucracy.
Licensed bookmakers must also comply with the Unlawful Betting Act, Interactive Gambling Act, and Financial Transaction Records Act. These last two are federal laws, and they cover the entire country, not just NT bookmakers. You can apply directly to the NT Racing Commission to obtain a new license: the application fee costs around 300 AUD, and the license fee is only 24,800 AUD. However, you must also hold an asset worth 200,000 AUD in one of the Northern Territory banks. Unlike other states, different licenses are not required for sports betting and horse racing, NT bookmakers can offer both with a single license.
All of these are positives, of course, but online betting sites are still subject to restrictions that apply to other bookies in Australia: local and federal laws can severely restrict the types of services punters can use, as we'll explain in more detail below. As a simple example, you cannot take advantage of bonuses. Therefore, we recommend that you take a look at our list of NT bookmakers to get a more satisfactory service.
The Northern Territory made horse racing betting legal in 1983 with the "Racing and Betting Act". In other words, horse racing betting became legal a year before sports betting. We can see the plain and practical approach here as well: this act has been prepared in a very short and simple language. It states that betting on horse racing is legal, and a commission will be set up to license NT bookmakers for the business. That's the NT Racing Commission, which will also start issuing licenses for sports betting next year.
The relevant law has undergone some changes over time, but most of them are related to tax percentages and authorized departments, which do not directly concern punters. The only exception is the "totalisator" change in 2000. The “Totalisator Licensing and Regulation Act”, which came into force in the same year, made a distinction between on-course and online betting and decided that the right to on-course betting should be given exclusively to a single operator. (Let's point out that there is a similar regulation in other Australian states too.) Currently, NT bookmakers that offer horse racing services are divided into two: those that offer services at physical betting booths (totalisator) and those that offer services on online websites.
A totalisator license was granted to UBET NT (Tatts Group) for 20 years in 2015. That is, until 2025, no operator other than UBET NT will be able to offer this service. There is no such restriction for online bookmakers: it is still possible to obtain a license for online horse racing betting with the procedure we have explained above.
If the name UBET NT is unfamiliar to you, let us point out that the trademark of this company is “TAB”. As is known, this is a subsidiary of Tabcorp, Australia's largest gambling company, and is active in every state in the country. Moreover, it is not only active, but also almost always manages to be the largest operator for online and on-course betting.
Thoroughbred Racing NT and The Darwin Greyhound Association make up the main racing clubs in the state. Horse races are held at Fannie Bay (Darwin), Pioneer Park (Alice Springs), Adelaide River, Pine Creek, Katherine, and Tennant Creek. There is only one racetrack for Greyhound racing (Winnellie Park in Darwin). In each of these facilities, you can find UBET NT booths. But you don't have to use them: Northern Territory racing clubs have no say in the licensing process, so online licenses issued by the NT Racing Commission cover all these races too. In other words, you can also use online bookmakers to bet on these races.
As we mentioned above, the Northern Territory does not have complex laws for gambling or betting: only a few local laws that came into effect in the 1980s regulate this industry. In this context, the laws concerning NT bookmakers consist of:
NT bookmakers licenses are issued directly by the NT Racing Commission and have fairly simple requirements compared to other states. An operator applying for a new license simply needs to complete a background check, pay an application fee of around 300 AUD, and show a guarantee of 200,000 AUD at one of the NT banks. These simple requirements result in a higher number of NT bookmakers compared to other states. You can also see an up-to-date list of licensed bookmakers on the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) site. This list includes the following names:
This is almost the same as the list we shared above, but you may have noticed that some of the names are different. This is because the ACMA and the NT Racing Commission keep their records differently. ACMA bookmakers can consider the company name instead of the trademark and includes operators that do not yet have a trademark.
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is the same in all Australian states: since 2019, no local operators, including NT bookmakers, can offer bonus bets or any other promotions. The main reason for this is the federal National Consumer Protection Framework (NCPF) regulation in 2018. This regulation prohibits all campaigns that may mislead the consumer, including gambling and betting promotions. The Northern Territory also updated all its laws in May 2019 to comply with this federal regulation, and practically banned gambling bonuses altogether.
Under the “Code of Practice for the Responsible Service of Online Gambling 2019”, NT bookmakers are prohibited from offering bonuses for opening an account. A special regulation has also been introduced for bonus bets: it has been decided that bonus bet offers with a wagering requirement (i.e., bonuses that cannot be withdrawn instantly) cannot be offered. Likewise, NT bookmakers are prohibited from sending promotional materials unless expressly permitted. Technically, bonus bets can still be offered by NT bookmakers but must not contain wagering requirements. In practice, this turns into a ban, as no bookmaker wants to make such an offer. That's why we suggest you take a look at the NT bookmakers list that we have prepared, because the bookies we have selected still allow you to take advantage of promotions such as bonus bets.
[https://addisons.com/knowledge/insights/restrictions-on-gambling-advertising-latest-measures-introduced-under-the-national-consumer-protection-framework/]
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