A year on from the royal commission, the odds haven’t improved for Crown’s Melbourne casino

When Commissioner Ray Finkelstein delivered his findings from the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence last October, he lambasted Crown Resorts’ conduct as “disgraceful, illegal, dishonest, unethical, callous, alarming, and exploitative”, and concluded Crown was unfit to hold a casino licence.

A year on, it’s timely to reflect on how far we’ve come in implementing the royal commission’s recommendations, and how far we still have to go.

Oversight has been improved

The royal commission found that the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Reform lacked the ability to impart meaningful disciplinary action on Crown Resorts. It recommended that the regulator be given greater access to information, and that a Special Manager be appointed to oversee and investigate Crown’s operations, and override decisions if necessary.

The regulator has since been split in two – the independent Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission, and the Victorian Liquor Commission within the Department of Justice and Community Safety. And Stephen O’Bryan QC was appointed as the new Special Manager in January this year.

The first Special Manager’s activity report revealed they’ve been busy establishing the office and meeting with key Crown staff and board members.

While the Office of the Special Manager must regularly report to the Victorian government, the rest of us will likely have to wait for their final report due at the end of 2023 to see whether they think Crown has done enough to redeem itself.

Anti-money-laundering measures are now in place

To prevent money laundering, the royal commission recommended that Crown maintain only a single bank account for each patron’s transactions, and enforce cashless play for all transactions of more than $1000.

These important changes have been implemented, with any casino patron wishing to gamble more than $1000 now needing to show identification and use pre-loaded, casino-issued cards to do so.

While carded play has been mandated for amounts over $1000, the royal commission urged that we go further and make carded play compulsory for all gambling at the casino. It also recommended that records identifying all people entering the casino should be maintained.

Notably, these anti-money-laundering measures won’t apply at other gambling venues across the state where the criminal practice is also a major concern.

Mandatory pre-commitment is being implemented

Another of the royal commission’s recommendations was for the voluntary pre-commitment system YourPlay, launched in 2015, to be made mandatory for Australian residents gambling on poker machines at Melbourne’s casino.

This mandatory pre-commitment scheme will also limit poker machine play to no more than three hours in one sitting, 12 hours in a 24-hour period, and 36 hours in a week.

Unfortunately, while mandatory pre-commitment is better than voluntary pre-commitment, a fundamental design flaw of YourPlay is that players can set their time and spend limits to “no limit”, and those who have reached their time or spend limit can simply remove their YourPlay card and continue gambling.

Understanding of this, the royal commission recommended that when pre-set time or loss limits for poker machines are reached, those limits cannot be altered for 36 hours.

Importantly, limiting the mandatory nature of the pre-commitment only to poker machines, and only at Melbourne’s casino, means that it doesn’t apply to other forms of gambling at the casino, or any form of gambling at hundreds of venues all over the state. We can do better, and we need not look far for inspiration.

Tasmania has just announced a state-wide mandatory pre-commitment scheme that covers poker machines at any venue, including hotels, clubs and casinos.

The player card gaming scheme will also have default spending limits of $100 per day, $500 per month, and $5000 per year that can be lowered by players and increased only within certain parameters. 

We need to address gambling harms across the board

Last week was Gambling Harm Awareness Week, so it’s important to call out the elephant in the room. The fact is all forms of gambling, not just designed-to-addict poker machines, can and do cause harm.

The royal commission reforms are welcome, but their limited focus on Crown’s Melbourne casino means that even once they’re fully implemented, people will continue to experience gambling harms unchecked online and at hotels, pubs and clubs right across Victoria.

The clock is counting down for Crown

While Crown Resorts and the Victorian government have started taking important steps to limit the potential for misconduct and reduce gambling-related harm to casino users, recommendations yet to be acted on include limits on shareholding arrangements, a majority independent board, and expanding the functions and powers of inspectors so they can effectively monitor conduct on the casino floor and have unfettered access to all areas of the casino.

There’s still much to be done, and little more than a year left for Crown to get its house in order and become worthy of keeping its casino licence. For once, the odds aren’t in the casino’s favour.