A senior Star Entertainment executive has alleged the company falsified required welfare checks on pokies players and accidentally allowed customers to take $3.2 million they had not won from its machines.
The Pyrmont business could be shut down if it does not regain its licence, which would end the employment of 3000 people and cut billions of dollars in tax contributions from the state government’s bottom line.Weeks – who has held the company’s casino licence since it was disgraced in 2022 – said he believed the business’s recently departed boss, Robbie Cooke, had worked hard but ultimately failed to juggle the requirements of keeping the business afloat with the demands of remediation.
He said this event was of particular concern given it was not addressed by the company until July 24, and he had expected that an ASX-listed casino business would have strict oversight of its financial position at all times. Instead, it failed to fix the machine for almost two months, which meant customers were able to keep reusing their tickets in exchange for more money.
Weeks said he was most concerned that the breaches were raised only by Liquor and Gaming inspectors and not any staff within the company itself, despite the scale of the breaches.