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Star Entertainment “is and remains unsuitable” to hold a licence to operate casinos in New South Wales, according to a long-awaited report.
Adam Bell SC published on Tuesday a series of damning findings about Star’s operations, following a lengthy inquiry that heard allegations of money laundering, organised crime, fraud and foreign interference at its gaming facilities in NSW.
Releasing the report, the chief commissioner of the Independent Casino Commission, Philip Crawford, said Star had been issued with a show cause notice, and had 14 days to respond before he decided what action to take.
Describing the report as “shocking” and “confronting” Crawford said the commission was considering all options available to it, including revoking Star’s licence to operate casinos in NSW, or fines of as much as $100m.
“I can say from the contents of the report, doing nothing is not an option,” he said.
“The company too often, and this is a repeating theme through the report, seemed to be asking not whether something they were looking at doing was appropriate, but how they could do it. Not whether it was the right thing to do, but how they could find a way to do it.”
He said Star “tended to ignore” risks associated with their conduct, and then “tried to hide” some of the outcomes.
“They incurred substantial risks around the following topics: money laundering, allowing criminals to gamble in their casinos, the infiltration by organised crime. And they paid scant regard to proper harm minimisation criteria.”
The report, Crawford said, detailed “very real risks of criminal infiltration” at Star’s operations, as well as “vast sums of cash” evading what Bell described as the firm’s “unsatisfactory” anti-money laundering policies.
Despite a series of high-profile resignations during the Bell inquiry, Crawford said the commission remained concerned about the “astounding” level of “institutional arrogance” at the company. He said the commission wasn’t “getting the vibe” that it had learned from its mistakes.
“I’m afraid the cultural, institutional arrogance hasn’t changed much,” he said.
“There is still an unwillingness to show the right level of transparency.”
Crawford said the commission remained concerned about Star’s internal culture, and said he felt “a fresh set of eyes” was needed at the company.
“One of the problems with the rehabilitation of the Star is that the board, nobody on behalf of the company has yet undertaken a proper root cause analysis,” he said.
“I’m not sure they’ll understand what they’ve got to fix until they know what the problem was.”
The report found specific breaches of the Casino Control Act, as well as Star’s own internal control policies.
The inquiry concluded in June, with counsel assisting the inquiry, Naomi Sharp SC, arguing the company and its close associates were not suitable for a casino licence.
Star, which has been approached for comment, suspended trading on the ASX on Monday ahead of the release of the report.
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