Crown Resorts has been deemed unfit to run the Perth casino, according to the Royal Commission into the Perth Casino. The commission did not recommend taking away the company’s license, though.
The commission’s report suggests several changes that Crown should make to be considered fit to operate the casino. These changes include setting mandatory limits on electronic gaming machines.
This report follows two previous investigations into Crown’s qualifications to hold licenses in other areas. The Bergin Report in New South Wales looked into whether Crown was suitable to run a casino at its new resort in Barangaroo, Sydney. The Victorian Royal Commission report investigated Crown’s qualifications to run its flagship Crown Melbourne resort.
Like the Perth report, both inquiries found Crown to be unfit to hold a license, but did not take away or refuse to grant licenses.
The report found many shortcomings in Crown Resorts and its subsidiaries while investigating Crown’s qualifications. Many of these shortcomings were similar to those found in previous reports. Most of the issues raised related to VIP dealings and anti-money laundering measures, as well as governance issues.
The document indicates that Crown progressively depended on intermediaries in Melbourne and Perth, beginning in 2013.
The document also indicates that Chairman James Packer “was not informed at the time of his appointment that middleman operators presented a greater risk than other segments of the Perth casino gambling industry, both in attracting criminals and facilitating money laundering.”
Moreover, the document states that other key figures had limited or no comprehension of how the intermediary business functioned and the associated hazards.
In 2009, when the Western Australian Gaming Commission initially considered permitting intermediaries, operators asserted they would conduct anti-money laundering checks and would not collaborate with intermediary operators deemed “high risk.”
However, the company “approved and sustained relationships with intermediary operators and intermediary representatives who were evaluated as ‘high risk’ from a money laundering standpoint.”
“He believed that these risks were controllable,” the document adds.
Regarding corporate governance, the document discovered that numerous of Crown Perth’s key legal and compliance roles had been consolidated. Consequently, Crown Resorts’ central operations were accountable for overseeing numerous aspects of Perth casino’s daily legal and compliance functions.
The document says this made responsibility more challenging.
The document indicates that Crown Perth’s subsidiary did not actively engage in the evaluation or authorization of high-roller operators traveling to the Perth gambling establishment, nor did it supervise the evaluation and approval processes.
The document also indicates that there is no proof that senior management informed the subsidiary board of agreements reached with high-roller operators, such as Suncity.
These issues were compounded by the fact that Chairman James Packer did not participate in board meetings of Burswood Limited, the Crown subsidiary that owns the resort, from August 2013 until his departure in 2016.
The document states: “Crown acknowledges that Packer’s non-attendance at board meetings was inappropriate and that other members of the BL board should have been concerned about this and taken steps to address the prolonged absence.”
Regarding money laundering, the document found that cage staff were adequately trained to identify potential questionable transactions.
Crown’s Cage and Accounts General Manager, David Brown, acknowledged that he “was aware of some suspicious transactions that occurred in 2013 and 2014” and should have reported them to AUSTRAC, the anti-money laundering agency.
Meanwhile, it was discovered that Crown’s former Chief Financial Officer, Ken Barton, was aware that Crown’s high-roller team requested that certain bank accounts used by high-rollers did not include Crowns name.
The document indicated that the revelation of the riverbank’s function did not spark any warning signs, as the individual’s account could have been utilized for illicit financial transactions.
The document recommended that Crown adopt a more transparent corporate structure than the current arrangement, defining the responsibilities of each subsidiary.
Additionally, Crown Perth should implement a comprehensive, mandatory, and binding pre-commitment and gaming time restriction program for electronic gaming machines (EGMs) at the Perth casino as soon as possible.
Under this system, patrons must establish weekly spending limits, and if they fail to do so, a default limit should be set for them based on research into “safe” limits. While customers may be able to raise these spending limits, the Gaming and Wagering Commission should establish “prescribed maximum limits.”
The maximum wager amount on these machines should be set at $10.
Simultaneously, high-stakes players must provide “documentation demonstrating their financial capacity.”
Based on these findings, the report concluded that Crown and its subsidiaries were not appropriate “to be involved in or associated with the gaming operations of a licensed casino.”
However, the Royal Commission did not revoke its license but instead proposed a series of modifications that Crown Perth must implement.
In the meantime, the report also discovered that the gaming authority should be reorganized and provided with increased financial resources to more effectively oversee operators.
Following a protracted bidding process, Crown was ultimately purchased by Blackstone, a private equity behemoth, in a transaction valued at A$8.9 billion. Blackstone initially submitted a proposal in March 2021 and subsequently raised its offer in January 2022.
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