NSW Defers Cut To Casino Daily Cash Limits By Two Years

The New South Wales (NSW) state government has deferred a legislated 80 percent cut in the cash transaction limit for casino customers by two years, in the latest concession for Sydney’s struggling casino duopoly.

The Star Entertainment Group’s Star casino and Crown Resorts’ Crown Sydney casino will now reduce the daily carded cash gambling limit from A$5,000 to A$1,000 ($3,240 to $650) on August 19, 2027 instead of later this month.

The deferral is subject to regulatory monitoring and “providing ongoing reports to [government body] Liquor & Gaming NSW in relation to various customer and related data” and can be revoked at any time, Star Entertainment said in an Australian Securities Exchange filing on Tuesday (August 5).

The NSW government acted after receiving complaints from Star Entertainment and Crown Resorts that the customer limit cut would hurt business at a difficult time for both companies.

“The continuation of this arrangement was approved in recognition of several factors,” a spokesperson for gaming minister David Harris told the Sydney Morning Herald.

These include “the effectiveness of other financial crime measures, particularly mandatory carded play and improved customer risk assessment processes aimed at preventing money laundering, along with concerns by casino operators about potential employment impacts”.

This is the second deferral of the cut to the daily cash limit and marks a three-year delay to implementation of Section 73A of the Casino Control Act 1992, after The Star and Crown Sydney successfully requested an extension from August 2024.

The Star Entertainment Group’s case is more compelling given its inventory of a maximum 1,500 slot machines that require modification to allow carded gambling. Crown Sydney’s licence prohibits the use of slots.

But Star Entertainment is also under pressure on several regulatory and fiscal fronts, making this week’s concession from the government all the more valuable.

The company’s divestment of its share in the Queen’s Wharf casino precinct in Brisbane, Queensland state, fell through after Star’s Chinese consortium partners pulled the plug on the deal last week.

Star Entertainment must now reimburse a net A$40m to Chow Tai Fook Enterprises and Far East Consortium International, as well as secure new funding to cover A$200m in equity contributions to the troubled Brisbane project.

Pressure that might scuttle a crucial A$300m Bally’s takeover of the loss-making company is also increasing because of a December deadline for Star to renew its debt facility and a pending fine, likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars, by federal transactions regulator AUSTRAC over years of non-compliance.

The NSW government arguably saw political wiggle room in allowing another concession to the casino operators given AUSTRAC’s current shift to investigating slot machines in pubs and clubs sector.

AUSTRAC on July 30 announced the prosecution of leading club owner and slot machine operator Mounties Group over “serious and systemic” breaches of anti-money laundering legislation, the culmination of years of its investigations into the pubs and clubs slot machine segment.

The pubs and clubs-operated slot machine segment has until recently been all but untouchable in regulatory terms given the power and use of intimidation of its lobby groups, with this legacy and the latest change in the NSW government delaying any coherent plan to introduce cashless gambling.