Crown Resorts Delays The Launch Of New Sydney Property After Its License Being Called Into Question

Article by : Helen Dec 8, 2020

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Crown Resorts is at an impasse, and it might need a miracle to find the way out. After being blamed for allowing criminals to play in its gambling venues, all Crown Resort’s dreams of starting gambling activities at its brand-new US$2.2-billion complex in Sydney have been ruined. Now, this can be the miracle that saves the Crown from a failure.

Crown Resorts was considered to be unsuitable and unreliable for the gambling license pending a final decision, as the operator’s gambling venues were exchanging huge bags packed with money for chips without even asking any question about the source of the money.

I am not “comfortable” allowing the casino operator to resume its gambling operations on a larger scale in a new Sydney gambling venue next month..

Suspecting that things might go wrong, Crown Resorts has just sworn off all junket operations, trying to save its gambling license and calm down the Australian gambling regulators. Crown said that it will resume all operations with junkets only if they are approved or licensed by all local gambling regulators in the states where Crown operates. Anyway, it was way too little and too late to make up for all mistakes that have been made by the company during many years, so all that is left to be done now is just to wait and see what the outcome of the still-ongoing inquiry will be.

One of the main reasons for the Crown’s gambling license being put under question is the fact that the company has been persistently turning a blind eye to money laundering happening on a regular basis. Even the company’s lawyers confirmed that 2 bank accounts owned by Crown Resorts were used to launder money gained through outlawed operations. “Crown accepts that there were funds deposited into the Riverbank and Southbank accounts… indicative of ‘cuckoo smurfing’ “, said Robert Craig, the counsel of Crown.

During an emergency ILGA meeting on November 18, Philip Crawford said that he was very disappointed that Crown Resorts didn’t take the initiative to put its venue’s launching on hold due to the ongoing investigation. On the contrary, it submitted the request to launch gambling operations in the new Barangaroo property next month. Of course, the request was denied by the regulators. Crawford added that there are still many question marks around the company’s operations that might be probably related to child sexual exploitation, drugs, and financial terrorism. As it was expected, all Crown Sydney applications were put “under consideration,” according to the IGLA meeting outcomes published right after the Microsoft Teams meeting.

The next ILGA board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, 16 December 2020, which means that Crown Resorts will remain in a hanging position at least until the middle of December. February 2021 is the deadline for Commissioner Patricia Bergin to reach a verdict for a once-respected gambling company. Drawing on Bergin’s comments during the November meeting, the future doesn’t look that bright for Crown Resorts. She was very disappointed that the company tried to get away with money laundering, ignoring the chances to own up to its mistakes.

Crown Resorts has already put its ASX-listed shares into a trading halt, but it still plans to launch its new Barangaroo venue in December without holding any gambling activities. The company representative explained: “Crown is about to focus on launching the non-gaming operations at Crown Sydney, in consultation with ILGA, in the absence of the commencement of gaming operations.”