A month-long investigation into Crown Resorts’ license application for its A$2.2 Billion Barangaroo casino resort has ended unfavourably for the company.
The NSW’s Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA) presented a report to the State Parliament on 9 February, with the recommendation that Crown needs to make “sweeping cultural changes if it wanted to apply for a license in the future.”
The head of the inquiry and former chief judge in the NSW Supreme Court, Commissioner Patricia Bergin stated that the Crown Resorts casinos in Melbourne and Perth were proven to have serious problems with money laundering and were possibly linked to international organised crime groups.
The company’s numerous regulatory arrangement failings were also brought up, with some crucial issues that needed to be urgently remedied.
This places the new resort in Sydney in an awkward position as it has already opened its hotel and restaurants to the public. The report has yet to be adopted by the ILGA but it is widely understood that this is a mere formality.
The report identified several “core problems” that made Crown unsuitable to hold the requested license. These include the operator’s “poor corporate governance” and “deficient risk-management structures.”
