Latest / The Front / Inside a casino crime wave: bags of cash, Rolexes and a $250m fine

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Inside a casino crime wave: bags of cash, Rolexes and a $250m fine · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, October 29, 2026. Breathtaking criminality and a penalty
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that could have been much, much higher. The casino operator
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  Speaker 1: Star has had a huge judgment in the federal court
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  Speaker 1: with big implications for the rest of the gaming sector
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  Speaker 1: and for the punters. That's today's story. Cash cards, money
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  Speaker 1: in brown paper bags, ATM dodginess. You couldn't make up
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  Speaker 1: some of the stuff that's been going on at Star,
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  Speaker 1: the casino group that has operations in both Sydney and Queensland.
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  Speaker 1: Eric Johnston is the Australian's Associate Editor and he's been
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  Speaker 1: covering a federal court judgment about some of Star's activities. Eric,
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  Speaker 1: first let's start with what was going on at the
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  Speaker 1: Star Casino Group. One of the things that jumped out
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  Speaker 1: to me was allowing customers to hand over cash to
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  Speaker 1: star employees in things like cereal boxes that had been
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  Speaker 1: glued up. What was that all about?
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  Speaker 2: It's pretty extraordinary when we step back and look at
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  Speaker 2: the behaviour that was happening inside a regulated business. Casinos
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  Speaker 2: are heavily regulated, yet behaviour like this was allowed to
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  Speaker 2: go on. So it first emerged in 2022, the Financial
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  Speaker 2: Crimes Regulator, that's AUSTRAC, they cover money laundering, anti-money laundering,
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  Speaker 2: and they trace criminals through the pattern of cash. They
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  Speaker 2: took a great interest in the casino sector because that
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  Speaker 2: was getting notorious for being able to wash the cash.
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  Speaker 2: And here they found Star, their investigation of Star Entertainment,
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  Speaker 2: at the time operated the Sydney Casino based there in Pyrmont,
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  Speaker 2: the Treasury Casino in Brisbane and also a casino on
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  Speaker 2: the Gold Coast. It noticed some activity, pretty clear wrongdoing activity.
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  Speaker 2: It had crooks coming in and these were known crooks.
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  Speaker 2: There was just cash being washed around the casino. There
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  Speaker 2: was chips being handed out. Senior star staff would take
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  Speaker 2: them to the front desk and provide them fake invoices
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  Speaker 2: that they've actually booked in accommodation and transport for hundreds
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  Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars. Their money could go into the casino,
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  Speaker 2: and they could go walk over to the gaming floor
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  Speaker 2: and take it out on the other side as a
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  Speaker 2: legitimate transaction. Some patrons who were actually barred from attending
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  Speaker 2: the Star Sydney Casino by the New South Wales Police
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  Speaker 2: due to criminal links were actively flown by Star to Queensland,
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  Speaker 2: their Queensland casinos, and provided with complimentary gaming rooms And
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  Speaker 2: they were also permitted to gamble millions of dollars across
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  Speaker 2: the Star, Gold Coast and Treasury in Brisbane. There was
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  Speaker 2: no tracing of this money, inflated invoices, all with the
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  Speaker 2: aim of getting these patrons to play at the casino.
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  Speaker 1: One of the examples that I read in the judgment
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  Speaker 1: is just stunning. This is about customer 84. This person
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  Speaker 1: was subject to a New South Wales Police exclusion order
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  Speaker 1: and but was a high-value customer at Star in Queensland.
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  Speaker 1: Star Queensland provided this person with $ 570, 000 in gifts and
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  Speaker 1: luxury incentives, including a Rolex, Gucci and Louis Vuitton vouchers,
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  Speaker 1: food and beverage packages, private jet flights, even after this
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  Speaker 1: same person had handed over nearly $ 200, 000 in a Woolies
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  Speaker 1: cooler bag to Star staff. How did any of this
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  Speaker 1: escape the notice of the regulator when Star itself was
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  Speaker 1: operating legitimate bank accounts, right? It was putting money into
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  Speaker 1: its own bank accounts.
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  Speaker 2: And that's a very good question about the regulator. But
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  Speaker 2: just on Customer 84, he had been linked to $ 300
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  Speaker 2: million worth of turnover in the casino. So you can
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  Speaker 2: see the trade-off and the temptation of what was going
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  Speaker 2: on for Star at that very point. So great question.
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  Speaker 2: what were the regulators doing? So we have this situation
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  Speaker 2: where casinos are actually regulated by states, not a federal regulator.
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  Speaker 2: AUSTRAC is a federal regulator. It's come in after being
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  Speaker 2: aware and launching this investigation. So it's actually set the
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  Speaker 2: ball rolling to clean up the sector. Now we saw
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  Speaker 2: similar activity take place and we can say similar because
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  Speaker 2: They've agreed to a settlement a couple of years ago.
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  Speaker 2: This was Crown Resorts, the casino operator in Melbourne and
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  Speaker 2: also in Perth. It's paid a $ 450 million fine with
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  Speaker 2: Austrac after agreeing to this. How did it take place? Well,
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  Speaker 2: management looked the other way. Can I emphasise that the
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  Speaker 2: people at Star today are not the people that are
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  Speaker 2: linked to these allegations and statement of fact? They're all
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  Speaker 2: long gone, so the people there today are not the
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  Speaker 2: people that we're talking about. This was the kind of
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  Speaker 2: thing that took place in casinos at the time. This
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  Speaker 2: was accepted in casinos. As long as they weren't causing trouble,
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  Speaker 2: killing anybody on their premises or causing any strife, there
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  Speaker 2: was an acceptance, a silent acceptance that this could be
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  Speaker 2: okay for this to take place.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned that the management has moved on,
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  Speaker 1: but nobody's gone to jail for any of this yet
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  Speaker 1: from STAR. Why not?
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  Speaker 2: So ASIC brought in a case against the management of STAR.
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  Speaker 2: This was a civil case. The reason being it calculates
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  Speaker 2: you can get a better outcome with a big fine
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  Speaker 2: rather than sending one or two people to jail where
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  Speaker 2: there would be a risk and a much higher level
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  Speaker 2: of proof needed to get someone to send to jail.
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  Speaker 2: So ASIC has taken a civil action. It's had fines
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  Speaker 2: and bans against former management, but many people would be
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  Speaker 2: sort of stepping back and scratching their heads like yourself
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  Speaker 2: and going, well, you know, some clear wrongdoing took place
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  Speaker 2: here and no one has really paid the penalty. Penalties, yes,
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  Speaker 2: financial penalties, reputation, yes, these former managers will never work
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  Speaker 2: again in the casino industry. They'll never work again in
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  Speaker 2: an executive role.
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  Speaker 1: And also.
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  Speaker 2: This is a repeated thing that happens in companies and
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  Speaker 2: corporates that do wrong. The level of responsibility is so
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  Speaker 2: diffused across so many people that when it's the company
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  Speaker 2: that does something wrong, the companies aren't people themselves. So
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  Speaker 2: we can't send the company to jail. Who's actually responsible?
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  Speaker 2: Is it the board? Should the CEO known or taken
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  Speaker 2: more action? That level of responsibility starts to diffuse.
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  Speaker 1: The other thing that Star was up to was this
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  Speaker 1: kind of scam using what they call hotel cards, where
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  Speaker 1: they could entice gamblers from, say, mainland China, and they
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  Speaker 1: could get around China's rules about sending money offshore by
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  Speaker 1: allowing these people to pretend that they were just having
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  Speaker 1: a holiday, you know, that they were booking a room,
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  Speaker 1: but actually that the room was never occupied. And in fact,
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  Speaker 1: that money was being used to gamble. I mean, this
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  Speaker 1: is a level of kind of illegality that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: is on the verge of being a diplomatic incident. Surely
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  Speaker 1: there's a sort of national interest argument here for this
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  Speaker 1: kind of behaviour to be more severely punished.
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  Speaker 2: Again, don't forget these casinos are regulated by state authorities
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  Speaker 2: and at some point the state authorities don't have the
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  Speaker 2: sophistication to look across borders and they're not joining the dots.
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  Speaker 2: So We spoke about before a crook in Sydney that
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  Speaker 2: was banned in Sydney. He was simply just flown up
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  Speaker 2: to Brisbane. He wasn't a crook in Brisbane, therefore he
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  Speaker 2: was allowed to continue to play. So that's where there
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  Speaker 2: has been a strong argument for a national regulator of casinos.
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  Speaker 2: States would firmly resist this because of the cash cow
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  Speaker 2: that casinos also represents to their own interest as well.
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  Speaker 2: As much as a billion dollars is estimated to have
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  Speaker 2: flown into Starr, as a result of it providing these
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  Speaker 2: false invoices about the travel and the hotel accommodation. So again,
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  Speaker 2: we can see what's at stake for Star, keeping the
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  Speaker 2: wheels turning in this way.
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  Speaker 1: The penalty is $ 260 million. That's more than Star was
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  Speaker 1: hoping for and less than what Austrac wanted. Is that
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  Speaker 1: a real penalty? Is that really going to hurt Star?
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  Speaker 2: It will sting Star, but there is an escape hatch
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  Speaker 2: for the casino. in that it has been given 19
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  Speaker 2: months to pay the penalty over four instalments. So we
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  Speaker 2: spoke about Crown earlier that negotiated a settlement, $ 450 million
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  Speaker 2: about three years ago. That was a big hit. Crown's
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  Speaker 2: wrongdoing was very serious. It is argued that some of
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  Speaker 2: Star's wrongdoing was worse than Crown's. Crown's was just hopeless.
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  Speaker 2: They had no idea of their systems weren't working and
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  Speaker 2: a few rogue elements. Whereas Star seems a bit more
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  Speaker 2: calculating in some parts. We understand that AUSTRAC had proposed
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  Speaker 2: a settlement for Star of $ 200 million. This was about
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  Speaker 2: two years ago. A previous Star CEO, Steve McCann, he
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  Speaker 2: rolled the dice essentially and thought, no, let's go to
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  Speaker 2: court and argue for a lower penalty. AUSTRAC went to
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  Speaker 2: the federal court and said, well, you know what? Star
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  Speaker 2: hasn't been a cooperative witness. They haven't. They've resisted every
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  Speaker 2: step of the way. They deserve a penalty of $ 400
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  Speaker 2: million to send a message to all casinos that this
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  Speaker 2: type of behavior was not on. Star, on the other hand, said, look,
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  Speaker 2: we can't afford anything more than $ 100 million. If we
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  Speaker 2: pay more than $ 100 million, we're going to go broke.
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  Speaker 2: Justice Cameron Moore of the Federal Court has thought about
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  Speaker 2: this for almost 16 months now, and he's come back
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  Speaker 2: and thought, $ 260 million, that's a tough penalty for Starr,
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  Speaker 2: but not bad enough for it to go out of business. However,
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  Speaker 2: it does raise questions, though, because there are a couple
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  Speaker 2: of other cases that are now on foot, not with Starr,
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  Speaker 2: but with some other gaming companies and organisations, do they
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  Speaker 2: run the gauntlet? Do they sit down and negotiate with
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  Speaker 2: Austrac for an agreed payment now? Or do they run
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  Speaker 2: the gauntlet and roll the dice and go to federal
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  Speaker 2: court and potentially end up, not where Crown ended up,
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  Speaker 2: but potentially end up with a lower penalty than what
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  Speaker 2: they would have got?
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, is anything fixed at these casinos? Do you
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  Speaker 1: feel as though we're actually tackling the real problem that
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  Speaker 1: casinos pose to public order? Because even if they're not
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  Speaker 1: allowing crimes, people to be murdered on their turf, you know,
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  Speaker 1: people who were handing over bags of cash are probably
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  Speaker 1: out there doing other crimes facilitated by the money that
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  Speaker 1: they're washing through the casino, right?
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  Speaker 2: I recall during COVID we had a briefing from a
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  Speaker 2: police commissioner saying, at the Australian private briefing. I won't
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  Speaker 2: say which state it was. But he pointed out that
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  Speaker 2: at the time the level of crime had dropped off significantly.
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  Speaker 2: We all said, oh, well, that's because everyone's locked up.
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  Speaker 2: And he said, no, that's because the casinos are shut down.
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  Speaker 2: People have no means to transfer cash or to wash cash.
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  Speaker 2: So what we've seen since, the states have cracked down
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  Speaker 2: maybe reluctantly. New South Wales, for example, has cashless gaming
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  Speaker 2: in its casinos. That's on the poker machines and on
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  Speaker 2: the tables. That's for the casinos. And they've also introduced
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  Speaker 2: daily gambling limits. This has had a really profound effect
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  Speaker 2: on the casinos because the casual punters and the majority
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  Speaker 2: of Aussies love a punt and they're casual punters. However,
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  Speaker 2: now we're seeing this terrific arbitrage. So Where I have
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  Speaker 2: to sign up to start, provide who I am, and
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  Speaker 2: they've got to know their customer, which is me. I've
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  Speaker 2: got to provide ID and so on, and I have
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  Speaker 2: daily limits. I could walk across the road down to
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  Speaker 2: the Piedmont Bridge Hotel, and I only say that because
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  Speaker 2: it's local, and I can put money in the gaming machine.
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  Speaker 2: No cashless gaming facilities whatsoever. So the casinos are saying
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  Speaker 2: that money that previously came to our business is is
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  Speaker 2: now drifting out, not drifting, it's gone out in a
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  Speaker 2: torrent to the pubs and clubs around Sydney. And there
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  Speaker 2: is no regulation on that.
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  Speaker 1: Eric, thank you very much.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Claire.
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  Speaker 1: Eric Johnston is an associate editor with The Australian. You
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  Speaker 1: can check out Eric's work and all the rest of
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  Speaker 1: our journalism anytime at theaustralian.com.au.