“Star was behaving far worse than Crown ever behaved, and that’s been proven out by the fact that [the Australian Securities and Investments Commission] never laid any charges” against Crown’s board.
“I’m not saying we didn’t make mistakes, but Star was worse than us, and Star’s operating under Philip Crawford’s nose,” he said. Crawford declined to comment.
Crown and Star lost their casino licences and have faced much stronger regulation which has affected their struggling gambling businesses. Credit: Fairafax Media
Crown was found unfit to run its Melbourne casino after a royal commission exposed a “disgraceful” litany of legal and ethical breaches.
A Victorian royal commission into Crown, led by former federal court judge Ray Finkelstein, found the casino operator’s behaviour was “illegal, dishonest, unethical and exploitative”.
In 2022, Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman Joe Longo cited a lack of evidence and the statute of limitations for the decision that year to not individually prosecute Crown’s board of directors.
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Packer said in the interview that the two major casino operators had now been hollowed out by regulatory action, while pubs and clubs were given favourable conditions despite casinos paying “hundreds of millions of dollars” for licences and in taxes.
“I think it’s outrageous what’s happening to the casinos in Australia,” he said. “It’s as though they’re trying to bankrupt the businesses, and at the same time, the pubs and the clubs are flourishing.
“Now you have a situation where cash can’t be used in the casinos, and cash is used in the pubs and the clubs.”
This bad blood aside, Packer said he was in a good place after years of personal battles with mental health and substance abuse. He is preparing to celebrate Christmas in Australia with family.
“I’ve got a good psychologist, a good psychiatrist, and I’m working with them. And I think I’m … one of the luckiest people in the world,” he told the Rampart.
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