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Star Entertainment could lose its two Queensland 우리카지노계열 casinos and its showpiece Brisbane venue before it opens after the firm was declared unfit to hold a casino licence in the state.
Queensland Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman made the decision in response to former judge Robert Gotterson’s report into Star, released on Thursday following a public inquiry.
Mr Gotterson found the ASX-listed casino operator neglected its anti-money laundering and responsible gaming duties and deliberately misled regulators.
Ms Fentiman says the company will be issued with a show-cause notice and given 21 days to respond before facing penalties, such as licence cancellation.
«We have in black and white some damning findings about how this company has operated, how they dealt with the regulator, and their obligations to act in the public interest clearly were not taken seriously,» she told reporters on Thursday.
«So these are damning findings and the government will now act.»
The government will appoint a special manager to run the Star Gold Coast and the Brisbane Treasury casinos in the meantime.
Ms Fentiman said her declaration had implications for the licence for Star’s $3.6 billion Queens Wharf development in Brisbane, due to open in 2023.
In a filing to the ASX, Star said it was considering «matters raised by Mr Gotterson and will continue to work co-operatively» with Queensland regulators.
The Gotterson report said a focus on profit resulted in a «serious dereliction» of Star’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) responsibilities.
«The serious shortcomings in The Star’s AML/CTF Program and its practical implementation … are ones which show a serious disregard for the compliance regime,» he wrote.
«The deficiencies, however, arose from The Star’s poor culture and attitude towards compliance and not from any serious deficiency in the regime itself.»
Star encouraged people banned from its NSW and Victorian venues, who it had «grounds to suspect may have been involved in criminal activity», to gamble at its Queensland premises.
It even offered some of them free private jet flights, luxury accommodation and gifts including a $50,000 Rolex watch.
«As a consequence, some of the business that was drawn in placed the casinos at real jeopardy of infiltration by persons whom The Star had reason to suspect were likely to have been involved in criminality,» Mr Gotterson wrote.
The casino operator also deliberately misled the regulator about changing its policies to conceal $55 million in banned transactions from Chinese lender China UnionPay.
Mr Gotterson said Star’s failure to run its casinos in line with state laws was similar to failures identified by the NSW inquiry, 우리카지노 which also found it unfit to hold a licence in September.
«The two Star casinos presently carrying on business in Queensland (Star Gold Coast and Treasury Brisbane) have been operated in a way that is inconsistent with the achievement of the objectives of the Casino Control Act,» the report said.
The attorney-general said Queensland casino laws would be strengthened urgently in line with Mr Gotterson’s recommendations.
Ms Fentiman said the maximum fine for a casino will be raised to $100 million and there will be periodic reviews of each operator’s suitability to hold a licence.
A special manager will be appointed to supervise casino operations and there will be a mandatory casino code of conduct with fines for non-compliance.
Operators will also pay a supervision levy as part of their licence conditions and will be expected to exclude patrons banned interstate.
All gamblers will have to use cards linked to their personal identification and have to set their own daily, weekly and monthly loss limits.
Time limits will be imposed on gambling and all transactions of more than $1000 will have to be cashless.