Raiders promise to cancel million expansion
Simon Hawkins, general manager of the Raiders Group, says introducing poker at Casino Canberra in the Australian Bush Capital could prove disastrous for local clubs, which now have a corner on the popular games.
“The government seems to be fairly keen to explore” the casino’s plan, he lamented to the Canberra Times. He added that he has personally shared his concerns with Chief Minister Andrew Barr, who is “certainly open-minded” to the proposal. If the request is granted, Hawkins warned, the Raiders Group would suspend plans to redevelop its Gungahlin club.
“It would rip the carpet out from under our business,” he said. “We’ve been working on the businesses for 40 years, so you can’t just change it on a whim. That’s why a lot of clubs will close.” Hawkins says since the Star Sydney Casino opened in 1995, half of the city’s clubs have been run out of business, and the impact in Canberra will be as bad or worse.
Barr disagrees. “Clubs have opened and closed and expanded and contracted for a variety of reasons, unrelated to the casino, in recent times,” he countered. “It is hard to imagine that the transfer of a limited number of poker machines from one operator to another would have such a dramatic impact on viability.”
Barr said the plan requires one in four machines to be forfeited when they are bought, so for the casino to get 500 machines, about 165 others would be removed from the market.
The Raiders Group is the third largest owner of poker machines in Canberra, with more than 500 machines in three location, about half of which are in Gungahlin, reported the Times. The Raiders bought 45 new machines under the trading scheme which began in August, a move it would not have made if it knew of the casino bid, Hawkins said.
Casino Canberra was recently acquired owned by Tony Fung’s Aquis Entertainment, which plans to invest $330 million to redevelop the property and build a 3,300-square-meter (35,500-square-foot) expansion of the National Convention Centre. But none of this can happen unless the property gets 500 poker machines, said Aquis Managing Director Justin Fung. “You can’t have a supermarket that doesn’t sell eggs or milk,” he said.
Barr said a decision would not be made before next year.
Meanwhile, Justin Fung says his company’s goal is to operate on par with Australia’s dominant gaming operators, Crown Resorts and Star Entertainment, previously Echo Entertainment. “We see a significant opportunity to create international quality destination properties in currently underserviced areas of Australia,” said Fung. He said Aquis wants to be the “third force” in the industry Down Under.
Aquis bought Casino Canberra from Casinos Australia in December 2014 for $6 million. The renovated resort will feature a five-star hotel, retail district and convention center. The company has proposed an $8.15 billion Aquis Great Barrier Reef resort and casino at Yorkeys Knob in Queensland.
