Is pack opening gambling in Australia? Online rips, retail packs and the law

Online gambling in Australia is mainly governed by the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, a federal law. It treats a service as a "gambling service" when three things are true:

Online casino-style games of chance are not among the services the Act allows to be licensed. Providing one to people in Australia is an offence for the operator, wherever it is based. Separately, it is an offence to publish an advertisement for an illegal gambling service in Australia, and that applies to websites, influencers and affiliates, not just the operator.

Players are not the target of these offences. The risks for players are practical: losing money, dealing with an offshore company if something goes wrong, and a site being blocked.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) enforces the Act. Its actions closest to card rips:

• Lootie, 2022 (mystery boxes). The ACMA investigated from November 2021 and in April 2022 formally warned Lootie Limited. It found the site, which charged users to open mystery boxes for a chance at virtual or physical items of varying value, was providing a prohibited interactive gambling service. This was a regulator's finding, not a court ruling, but it is the closest precedent to online rips.
• CS:GO Roll, 2023 (skins). In May 2023 the ACMA formally warned the operator of a skins site where winnings were paid in game skins that could be sold for real money. It said casino-style games are illegal when played for money or anything of value, including skins, and raised concern about a youth market.
• Affiliates and promoters. The ACMA has formally warned the people behind affiliate sites that promoted offshore gambling services (Pokies Lab in 2022, Smart Pokies in 2024), and in 2026 investigated an athlete-influencer over promoting an offshore service. It also asks internet providers to block affiliate sites, not just casinos. Its August 2026 update put the total blocked at 1,788.
• MJ Trading Cards, 2026 (box breaks). The ACMA published an investigation report into MJ Trading Cards, a trading card "box breaks" business, under the Interactive Gambling Act in May 2026 (report GINV-2025-00027). We were not able to load the report's findings when researching this page, so we do not describe its outcome here. Read the report itself for the ACMA's conclusion.

We found no ACMA release, warning or block naming a Pokémon card rip platform such as Tilt Rips, Crown Cards or Packdraw as of 15 November 2026. Absence of action is not clearance.

Across the ACMA, a 2018 Senate inquiry, Liquor & Gaming NSW and academic commentary, the same dividing line keeps appearing: can the random result be turned into money?

• The ACMA told the 2018 Senate inquiry that video game loot boxes had not been regarded as gambling because their items are generally not "money or anything else of value".
• Liquor & Gaming NSW told the same inquiry that loot boxes alone are not gambling under NSW law, but that where contents can be monetised outside the game this is likely to offend NSW gambling laws, depending on the circumstances.
• In the Law Society Journal (24 February 2026), gambling lawyer Jamie Nettleton of Addisons said there is no real clarity on blind boxes, and that applied strictly, the federal test "arguably" applies to online mystery boxes.

Now look at how rip platforms describe themselves. Tilt Rips buys cards back at 90% of market value. Crown Cards offers 100% of fair market value when an offer is available. Packdraw lets you exchange an item and redeem the value in crypto. That buyback is built in by design. Shipping the physical card as an option does not remove the cash-out option.

No Australian regulator or court has treated buying a sealed Pokémon pack in a shop as gambling. The usual reasoning is that you buy goods at a fixed price and always get goods, the shop runs no game, and the shop does not offer to buy your pulls back. Any resale value comes from other collectors, not from the seller.

This is a reasoned position, not a decided case. Submissions to the 2018 Senate inquiry compared loot boxes with trading cards, and one argued gambling laws "may be activated", but that was a submitter's argument, not a finding. The same reasoning does not carry over neatly to an online rip with instant buyback.

Since 22 September 2024, video games classified in Australia face two minimums:

• Games with paid in-game purchases linked to chance, such as loot boxes, get at least M.
• Games with simulated gambling get at least R18+.

The change is not retrospective. It is a classification rule for computer games, not a finding that loot boxes are legal or illegal gambling. Games with real-money cash-out remain a gambling-law question, and whether a web-based rip site counts as a "computer game" needing classification has not been tested.

The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Act 2026 (No. 72 of 2026, assented to on 26 August 2026) starts on 1 January 2027. The main changes:

• Any Australian access counts. An ad on an online service is treated as published in Australia if anyone in Australia can access it. The old test, which looked at whether most visitors were in Australia, goes.
• Bigger penalties for illegal gambling ads. The civil penalty rises from 180 to 1,000 penalty units. At A$364 per unit from 1 July 2026, that is about A$364,000 per contravention.
• Removal powers. The ACMA can order content services and hosts to remove illegal gambling ads within 24 hours, tell search engines to delete links, and tell app stores to remove apps.
• Blocking duties. Internet providers, app stores and search engines must, as far as reasonably practicable, stop their services being used for illegal gambling with Australian customers, and banks and payment providers must block related payments.

For players, the likely effect is that illegal offshore services become harder to reach and to pay. If a site you use is blocked or loses its payment rails, getting a balance out may be difficult.