Resort targeting Asian high rollers
Early in 2016, New Zealand-based SkyCity, parent company of the Adelaide Casino in Australia, will begin a $300 million expansion pending government approval, the company has announced. The upgrade will add an 80-room riverfront hotel, gaming suites for international VIP players and signature restaurants, according to the Asia Gaming Brief.
Deputy Premier John Rau said he is “delighted to see progress is being made” on the planned development, which is part of a larger $610 million expansion of nearby Festival Plaza. The arts and entertainment district, home of the Adelaide Festival Centre, is adding a 24-story office tower, restaurants, bars, shops and a 1,560-space underground parking lot, the Australian Advertiser reported.
SkyCity Managing Director Nigel Morrison said the expansion will help the resort attract more high-rolling Asian players, especially those from Mainland China.
“They love wine, they love Grange, they love Magill Estate, they love golf and they love the weather,” he said. He has urged the government to consider regulatory changes that would enable the casino to lure high rollers who routinely gamble $30,000 per week on poker machines. In particular, Morrison wants to introduce bill acceptors, which enables gamblers to move easily between machines and presumably, spend more money because they can gamble more quickly.
“Adelaide is really the last jurisdiction that doesn’t have that,” Morrison said.
But Business Services Minister Gail Gago said casino patrons currently can gamble without cash, by putting money on a card used for poker play. And gaming opponent Senator Nick Xenophon said bill acceptors contribute to problem gaming and said if the casino gets them, pubs also will demand them.
“It may be a happy birthday for the casino,” said Xenophon, “but the birthday cake will have a bitter taste for the people whose lives have been ruined by the casino.”
Supporting the case against bill acceptors, South Australia has seen a distinct slide in gambling in recent years. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the decline has created a cash crunch for the state government. Revenues from poker machines dropped 0.5 percent to $60.7 million in September from $61 million the year before, leaving the government with taxes of just $287 million, short of projections for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
The Herald cited two big reasons for the drop-off: online gaming, and a decline in manufacturing, which has led to a sluggish economy. But it theorized that a third reason may also be in play: South Australia is the only state in Australia that requires gamblers to use tokens or $1 coins to place a bet. Bills are not permitted.
In another SkyCity development, an Australian court has ordered casino operator the company to turn over records related to high roller and admitted embezzler Rosalie Lalara.
Lalara has confessed to stealing $500,000 from her employer the Goorte Eylandt Aboriginal Trust, but that may be the least of her crimes. According to reports, millions of dollars in mining royalties went missing during her employment.
In September, CalvinAyre.com reports, September Lalara appeared in Darwin Supreme Court and pleaded guilty to embezzling $500,000 from the trust. She then used the money to gamble at SkyCity’s Darwin casino. She reportedly lost $1 million at the slots between 2009 and 2012, earning platinum status at the casino.
SkyCity originally denied keeping detailed records of Lalara’s wins and losses. Former General Manager Brad Morgan later “corrected” this assertion, saying, “In fact, the applicant is able to analyze its turnover records for Ms. Lalara and derive the amount of her net loss or net win.” But the casino still resisted turning over the files, claiming it would suffer “substantial injustice” if forced to release them.
At that point, the court criticized SkyCity, saying, “The monies Ms. Lalara gambled were not her own, and some appropriate enquiries should be made.”
According to ABC News Australia, the trust may pursue action against the casino to recover the lost funds, and gaming researcher Charles Livingstone of Monash University said the casino may have been remiss—and hence potentially liable—if it did not investigate the case. “If the casino became aware that large of sums of money—up to a million dollars or more—were being gambled from someone who had a reasonably modest occupation and reasonable income, it’s reasonable to assume that they should make enquiry as to where the money was coming from.”
Livingstone added that the court order could set a precedent that would apply in future similar cases. “If this information is then used in a successful legal action, arguing the casino had a duty to interrogate where the money was coming from, then it opens the floodgates to other people making similar claims in the future,” he said.
