Australian PM rejects idea for national gambling regulator

The idea of introducing a national regulator for casinos and online casinos is dismissed by the Prime Minister of Australia. Online casinos are getting more and more popular, which increases the calls for a national regulated online gambling market. However Anthony Albanese rejects this idea, for now..

Tuesday the Adam Bell report was released. The report covered the failure of anti-money laundering and social responsibility at the Star casino in Sydney for the last couple of years. In this report it was stated that the failures of The Star was a: “product of ineffective risk management and governance. It was also the product of a culture which was dysfunctional in relation to the matters investigated in this review, a culture which condoned unethical conduct, prioritised business goals over compliance objectives, courted risk and discouraged bad news.”

The report also stated that The Star casino was actively laundering money: “Not only were huge amounts of money disguised by the casino as hotel expenses, but vast sums of cash evaded anti-money laundering protocols in numerous situations, most alarmingly through Salon 95 – the secret room with a second cash cage.”

Andrew Wilkie, who is an independent MP and anti-gambling campaigner, said that this report shows a systemic and deep cultural problem within the company. He argues that these systemic problems within casino such as The Star and The Crown shows there should be a nationwide regulator who is attacking the root of the problems.

However, Albanese argues that the states are handling these problems quite well when looking at the cases of Crown and Star. Which proves that the state regulators are doing their job very well and that there is no need for a national casino regulator.