Pokies boss under investigation for alleged corruption<\/a><\/p>\nAinsworth Game Technology’s chief executive has been in the crosshairs of a corruption probe involving far-right politicians in Austria.<\/p>\n
Greek house and monthly payments to woman not disclosed<\/p>\n
This included bank accounts, a house in Greece, a rental property in LA for his daughter, and monthly payments and a credit card to a girlfriend in Germany.<\/p>\n
Asked by retired judge Assad whether he was “ever involved with that girlfriend of yours [in Germany] in prostitution or a money for sex exchange” \u2014 a suspicion that agents had raised \u2014 Mr Neumann emphatically denied it.<\/p>\n
Mr Neumann also refused for four months to hand over his phone to agents, telling the board he had been shocked at their seizure powers, and previously had private texts “illegally” leaked to the media after his phone was seized by Austrian investigators.<\/p>\n
Nevada agents later reported finding messages between Mr Neumann and an Ainsworth staff member in Sydney, with whom he had several dinner dates.<\/p>\n
After telling agents it was the kind of thing that happened at “every company”, Mr Neumann conceded the messages were “inappropriate” and he had breached the company’s fraternisation policy.<\/p>\n
‘Benefits to politician’ in Austria still under investigation<\/p>\n
Mr Neumann confirmed he was still under investigation for alleged corruption in Austria, where he was accused of seeking favours from far-right politicians to his former company Novomatic AG.<\/p>\n
Mr Neumann, who has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, said it had been “the intention from the state to close the file” but senior figures had insisted the case continue.<\/p>\n
“And we have in Austria, a law which \u2026 it’s not corruption if you continuously give benefits to a politician without any cause, just to have maybe a better position in the future if something happens \u2014 this is currently what is stated [prosecutors] still should investigate,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Neumann said he had “no intent to hide any information from the [Nevada] board, however, I should have given the application process more focused attention”.<\/p>\n
He said he took “full responsibility” for his inappropriate exchanges with the Australian Ainsworth staff member and apologised “for the lack of candour” to the Nevada regulator.<\/p>\n
“I acknowledge these things, and they should not have occurred, and I respectfully ask that it not overshadow my 15 years in the gaming industry and the success of both Novomatic and AGT in the gaming industry,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Neumann admitted raising his voice with agents but suggested they had been dishonest with him at times, including by telling him that the US State Department had confirmed a stamp in his passport showed a visit to Russia when he had actually travelled to Bosnia.<\/p>\n
‘Maybe in Sydney \u2026 not in Las Vegas’![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/88a585164004f9c44a2d82cb7907c054\")
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A licence hearing in Las Vegas this week turned into a nightmare grilling for the boss of an Australian pokie machine giant. (ABC News: Cameron Schwarz)<\/p>\n
The Nevada board chair Mike Dreitzer said he had “grave concern” about both Mr Neumann’s conduct with agents and his responses to the board’s questions.<\/p>\n
“In each and every instance the answers provided were vague, acting as a victim, blaming others, in some cases blaming agents,” Mr Dreitzer said.<\/p>\n
“I have to draw a big bright line at suggesting the agents were in any way dishonest, that’s just not something I can accept.”<\/p>\n
Retired judge Assad suggested Mr Neumann “look [the agents] right in the eyes and tell them you’re sorry”.<\/p>\n
Mr Neumann turned to address the agents, saying: “I apologise for my behaviour and I really regret it, I just got a strange feeling from you. Sorry. It was not my intention.”<\/p>\n
Asked if he believed he had a right to a gaming licence in Nevada, Mr Neumann said “yes, I believe”.<\/p>\n
“Well I got news for you, you don’t,” retired judge Assad said.<\/p>\n
“Maybe in Europe you do. Maybe in Sydney, Australia. Maybe in Vienna, Austria. But in the United States of America, especially Las Vegas, Nevada, you do not have a right. It’s a privilege.”‘Argumentative, arrogant, evasive’![\"Nevada](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/85a81cd76ea57373b0e41a2bf1fa6935\")
<\/p>\n
Members of the Nevada Gaming Control Board say it is the “gold standard” in gaming regulation worldwide. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Ms Sendall said it was difficult to swallow Mr Neumann’s explanations for his “multiple failures to maintain transparency” with investigators given he had been through the process in 2017.<\/p>\n
“And especially seeing you here for the past hour answering questions and unable to give a direct answer, it’s concerning to me,” she said.<\/p>\n
“You lose credibility when you don’t give direct answers, whether it’s about potential prostitution, whether it’s about signing a fraternisation policy, whether it’s about disclosing a bank account, whether it’s about disclosing rental properties, whether it’s about disclosing text messages and allegations that there’s blocks missing from the copy of the phone that was provided \u2014 of text messages that seem to insinuate that some of them were deleted.”<\/p>\n
Ms Sendall said it was “frustrating [and] concerning” for the board to have to treat Mr Neumann as a “hostile witness”.<\/p>\n
“This is a privileged licence. This is Nevada. We set the gold standard,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately I’m seeing a lack of emotional intelligence\u2026 and for you to be in the position that you’re in as CEO, it’s kind of mind-boggling honestly to me, that you can function at such a high-level and not have these basic leadership skills and communications skills and that you’re not \u2026 self-aware that you’re coming off as argumentative, arrogant, evasive to questions asked, difficult.”<\/p>\n
‘Your whole attitude stinks’![\"harald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/575afd8c05141ca19f1b1ae6e517840a\")
<\/p>\n
Harald Neumann, chief executive of Ainsworth Game Technology, is under investigation for alleged corruption in Austria. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Retired judge Assad asked if Mr Neumann had been “drinking any alcohol [or] on any type of medication” during his interviews with agents, which he denied.<\/p>\n
“Your behaviour is very unusual to say the least,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve never had an applicant come before me and have these issues \u2014 not just one or two but I’ve got eight different issues here that our investigators say were very problematic for them to conduct their investigation\u2026<\/p>\n
“I really don’t think you get it. You don’t get what this is all about.<\/p>\n
“I don’t see remorse. I don’t see acceptance of responsibility. I don’t see acknowledgement of guilt. I don’t see contrition. I see arrogance. That’s what I see.”<\/p>\n
The board declined to deny Mr Neumann a licence, a move that would have seen him added to Nevada’s so-called “grey list” of people banned indefinitely from the gaming industry.<\/p>\n
But it referred his application back to its investigators with an immediate request that he withdraw the bid since it stood no prospect of success in the short term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boss of an Australian poker machine giant has received an extraordinary public reprimand from US officials who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[126790,64,63,99,21944,126791,126789,2627,29880],"class_list":["post-203805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-ainsworth-game-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-gambling","tag-gambling-control-board","tag-harald-neumann","tag-nevada","tag-pokies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}