Sydney’s Star casino has had too much time to play latest hand of bluff poker

The revelation that the Minns government is considering a request by the struggling Star Entertainment Group to defer the deadline to restrict casino gambling in NSW risks making a mockery of inquiries that found the gaming industry needed reform for tolerating money laundering and doing business with organised crime.

The casino has cried poor and is unprepared to meet a legislated deadline to convert all poker machines and table games to card-only in 10 days’ time.

According to the Herald’s gaming reporter Amelia McGuire, senior members of the government met on Wednesday to discuss what to do about the card-only policy and consider whether to increase the cash limit as part of a compromised arrangement.

The Herald believes further delay is unacceptable.

It is worth reiterating why cashless play is necessary. More than five years ago, investigations by the Herald and 60 Minutes showed illegal activities and raised doubts about the business principles of Star Sydney and Crown casinos. The subsequent Finkelstein and Bergin inquiries into Crown casinos, and the Bell inquiry into The Star casino backed cashless cards as the best way to stop money laundering, weed out criminal elements and address problem gambling on poker machines.

The NSW Independent Casino Commission is due to release the findings of a second report by Adam Bell, SC, investigating Star’s suitability to continue to operate. Aside from that, both Star Sydney and rival Crown Barangaroo have been given until August 19 to become card-only premises. Under the current plan as legislated in the NSW Casino Control Act, customers will be limited to loading $1000 cash per day onto their respective carded systems before gambling. This limit will only apply to cash transactions.

McGuire said Star chief executive Steve McCann has asked for a review of the timeline, arguing his Sydney casino was not in a position to safely move to card-only trading without security and outage concerns. Such a transition is expensive for both cash-strapped casino businesses, but is considerably more complicated for The Star, which has to refit 1500 poker machines.

But Star has been given multiple lifelines from government. The largesse and favours must now stop. The Star management has known for years since it fell foul of the inquiries what it needed to do to clean up its act. Yet like a gambling addict unable to find a cure, the casino continues to obfuscate and plead poor. Any delay is beyond the pale and must be rejected by the government.

And should the government roll over on this, another house of cards is waiting. NSW pubs and clubs are currently undergoing cashless gaming trials and have ferociously fought threats to the $95 billion annually pumped through their machines. Capitulation to The Star’s demands would not bode well for how they would treat a wholesale rollout of cashless technology.

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