Crown Australia is Under Investigation for Crime Link Claims
- Written by News Company
It has been almost two years since the last Crown Resorts in Australia made the news because of alleged rigged machines in their casinos. Former staff was alleged to have been doing illegal activities to the pokies machines and players at their casinos.
A videotape of whistleblowers had allegations for the three former Crown workers against the company. The former staff was saying that they were specifically asked by the management to alter the number of play options on the poker machines that they have.
They blanked out the center buttons for the players to only have the highest and lowest option. Other allegations are that the casino patrons were also given plastic picks to jam buttons down for continuous spins.
The machines also had its play history cleared to reduce mandatory payouts. That basically made their pokies machines rigged and unable to give random payouts. Regulators were also apparently not checking on the game functions of the machines.
Indeed, those were heavy allegations from the former staff of the casino, but Crown had denied all the accusations. A parliamentary inquiry and police investigation were called for this, but the news eventually faded and nothing seemed to have happened.
Just recently, Crown is facing another controversy. The company is now under investigation again from Crime Link Claims. The accusations seem heavier this time around.
The Morrison government is now involved as it has ordered a national integrity watchdog to examine the allegations about the conduct of Commonwealth officials linked to Crown’s operation. There will be investigations held about the relationship between Crown and government agencies that include the processing of visas in China.
The allegations, according to independent MP, Mr. Wilkie, involve the flagship Melbourne casino that includes links to organized crime and money laundering, tampering with poker machines, violence, and drug trafficking.
It also emerged that Crown was warned that Chinese authorities were cracking down on illegal gambling promotion. The staff of the casino was also even warned to void electronic communication to minimize the risk of detection.
These allegations also led a former Victorian gaming minister to also demand the gambling regulator of the territory to investigate Crown about the given allegations. Tony Robinson was a game minister in the year 2000s.
Robinsons said that the Melbourne casino can potentially damage the state’s reputation. The Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation was asked to allocate more resources for the supervision of the investigation.
Robinson also said that the regulators haven’t applied the powers they had to really take a look at Crown and its activities. He wasn't surprised that these many allegations are suddenly surfacing. There only seems to be a regulatory failure in this case.
“Regulatory failure in this instance gives rise to criminal enterprise and serious harm to the state,” was part of his statement.
Mr. Andrew Wilkie has been a long-time Crown critic and the investigation he called for is heavily backed by the independent senator Jacqui Lambie. The investigation is mainly focused on looking into Nine’s claims and will be conducted by the federal parliament’s joint committees.
The allegations from Nine came out during an important time for Crown. James Packer, the company’s biggest shareholder was in the middle of unloading much of his holding to Hong Kong’s Melco Resorts. With all the allegations, Crown’s shares fell at 3.24 percent or 41c. It closed at $12.26.
With the allegations surrounding Crown and the investigations proceeding to look into those, many punters are upset and in a rage about the alleged rigged machines. This could be why they’d rather choose to play on online casinos nowadays as it promises to be safer.
Many players are now switching to gaming online and at livecasinoreports.com, punters can see the best online casinos with great deals and offers. Live dealer games make the experience just like how it is when they are in an actual casino.
Even if Crown is under investigation, many land-based and online casinos are still doing great when it comes to the number of their patrons. Australia is known to love gambling and so the issues surrounding Crown doesn’t seem to really affect the local gambling industry that much.
The recent issues that are once again bringing Crown’s name into the headlines took off late July. Currently, there are still no updates as to how the investigation is going. It also remains unclear if the new allegations are treated as new cases or just subject to the previous issues that Crown was involved in back in 2017.
Daily Bulletin
