Arrestees still in Shanghai detention center
If Crown Resorts staff members arrested in Mainland China are convicted of crimes, it should mean extra scrutiny of Crown’s domestic operations, says the former chairman of the New South Wales Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority.
According to ABC.net, Chris Sidoti said convictions “would place an authority like a regulatory body in Australia on notice and require further inquiries to be made.” Fourteen Crown staff members including three Australians remain in detention in Shanghai following a series of police raids across China last October.
James Packer’s mammoth gaming company currently holds casino licenses in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, where its controversial Barangaroo property is scheduled to open in 2021.
In an interview with ABC, Sidoti slammed the NSW government for failing to fully assess the project before awarding a license. “There was no public tender process and there was no inquiry at any stage, a public inquiry, as to the public benefit involved in this,” he said, calling the licensure process “inadequate” and “superficial.”
“I don’t think there was an appetite for thorough scrutiny,” Sidoti continued. “I think there was a wish simply to get the job done in terms of having some basic level of examination and doing the deal.”
Since the staff arrests, VIP turnover at Crown’s Australian casinos has tumbled 47 percent, both its chairman and CEO have resigned and Crown’s new Executive Chairman John Alexander has launched a full-scale austerity program, slashing jobs in Perth and reducing the firm’s investment in VIP programs. China had signaled the crackdown before the Crown swoop, with 13 South Korean casino employees arrested in 2015.
Gambling and the marketing of same is illegal in China, but foreign operators in the past have tread a fine line by seeming to promote only their resort amenities. ABC reported that since the arrests, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has issued a travel advisory stating that anyone who violates the Chinese law on gambling promotion “may be subject to fines, detention and/or a prison sentence.”
Among those in detention are Jason O’Connor, the Melbourne-based head of Crown’s International VIP programs, who was on his way to the airport in Shanghai when he was detained by police, as well as Malaysian-born Crown executive Alfred Gomez. The Malaysia Outlook reported that Chinese officials “are believed to have built up large personal dossiers on each of the Australian government officials who have worked with or assisted others in their breaches” of the country’s anti-gaming laws.
Despite the downturn in VIP business—a drop of 47 percent in Melbourne casino and 39 percent in Perth in the last six months of 2016—the Sydney casino will not be permitted to add pokies. “The policy hasn’t changed—that’s a VIP room,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
And if the detentions lead to prosecution and arrest of Crown employees, regulators may be within their authority to revoke Crown licenses, Sidoti said.
