A whistleblower with inside knowledge of the Queensland casino industry says the oversight body is "asleep at the wheel", with damning figures revealing no casino operator in the state has been prosecuted in the past five years.
The Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation (OLGR) is the state government body responsible for overseeing Queensland's four casinos — The Star Gold Coast, Brisbane's Treasury Casino, Townsville's The Ville Resort-Casino and Cairns' The Reef Hotel Casino.
Star Entertainment operates the Brisbane and Gold Coast casinos, with its licence soon to transfer from the Treasury to the $3.6 billion Queen's Wharf casino currently under construction, while the Townsville and Cairns casinos are each operated by separate companies.
There are 14 operating casinos in Australia and Queensland has more than any other state or territory.
A source with deep inside knowledge of the casino industry said the state's regulator had failed.
"There's no doubt about it, the Queensland regulator has clearly failed to deter, prevent and detect serious crime occurring in Queensland casinos and it's failed to protect vulnerable people from harm associated with gambling," they said.
"So far with all of these inquiries occurring nationally, the public attention has been on the casino operators and their terrible behaviour.
"The reality is that a culture that breeds that terrible behaviour can only thrive in a weak regulatory environment."
Figures from the OLGR reveal in the past five financial years — from 2017-18 to 2021-2022 — no casino operators have been prosecuted under the law.
The only successful prosecution the regulator has achieved was for a casino employee from The Ville Resort Casino, who pleaded guilty to obtaining a benefit for another person by a fraudulent act under the Casino Control Act and was fined $800.
The data also revealed no casino operator had been fined under the Casino Control Act, only two infringement notices were issued to operators under the Liquor Act in 2021.
The regulator was unable to say which casino operators had been fined, citing confidentiality provisions under the law.
In the same period, eight fines were issued to casino staff and 146 fines to patrons.
In the past five financial years, 3,669 incidents were reported to OLGR, 281 investigations were undertaken and 522 warnings were issued.
Prosecutions, fines and warnings are the enforcement action taken by the gaming regulator as a result of a serious casino breach.
The OLGR said the most commonly reported breach relates to matters like minors entering the casino floor or the casino failing to maintain minimum staffing levels within the areas of security, surveillance and supervision.
The fines issued are usually for a couple of hundred dollars.
Queensland regulator 'asleep at the wheel'
A source with knowledge of how the regulator operates in Queensland said the body was not adequately resourced to effectively manage casinos.
"They rely heavily on self-reporting by the casino operators and that requires a level of trust, which has clearly been misplaced when it comes to casino operators," they said.
"Time and again, we've seen casino operators intentionally misleading and hiding serious issues from the regulators.
"At the end of the day, if casino operators face a real threat of enforcement actions arising from breaches, they'll simply not self-report those breaches."
In a parliamentary hearing earlier this year for changes to current casino laws, the former interim CEO of Star Entertainment Geoff Hogg said Star had not been prosecuted or had fines imposed in relation to a number of minor breaches in the past five years in Queensland.
The source said the regulator was "asleep at the wheel" and that the oversight body "undoubtedly" took its cues from the government of the day.
"For example, when the Attorney-General announced the [Gotterson] review into Star, she flagged at that time that even if the review resulted in Star being found unsuitable, there were mechanisms to ensure that it became suitable instead of simply losing their license," they said.
"For the regulator and its staff that sends a clear message that the operators are too big to fail, and if that's the case, then how can the regulator and their staff pursue real change within the casino industry and pursue real penalties?"
Queensland the 'wild wild west' for casino regulation
Chief advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform Tim Costello said Queensland was a "completely lawless state" when it came to casino regulation.
"This is the wild wild west up here in Queensland," he said.
"There have been no fines, there have been no sanctions, there has been no action. This is a complete farce in Queensland.
"Queenslanders have been left unprotected from the ravages of money laundering, organised crime — all the bad things happening, really because there is no regulator here."
Mr Costello said the lack of enforcement was the result of close ties between the Queensland government and casino industry.
"It's been what's called state capture of regulator," he said.
"When you see how aggressive the gambling industry is, the level of its donations to both sides of politics — it's lobbying, it's bullying and the lack of a regulator actually enforcing sanction or imposing fines just proves what a joke this is.
"You realise this is a completely lawless state."
Mr Costello said the Queensland regulator, which sits inside the Department of Justice, needed to be made independent of government like what had been done in New South Wales and Victoria.
Crown and Star have been the subject of two royal commissions and two inquires in three states after media reports highlighted allegations of criminal infiltration in casinos.
Both Crown and Star have been found unsuitable to hold casino licences in certain states.
While these inquiries have found casinos facilitated money laundering and consorted with criminals, no single staff member, executive or board director of either Crown Resorts or Star Entertainment has faced a civil or criminal sanction.
In Queensland, former judge Justice Robert Gotterson is examining Star casinos operations in Brisbane and Gold Coast with his final report due to be handed to the Attorney-General on Friday.
The inquiry heard high-risk gamblers were incentivised to travel to Queensland to gamble at Star casinos even though "red flags" should have seen them banned.
In August, the OLGR said it had been investigating an "illegal junket operation" at The Ville and Cairns Reef Casino after the allegations aired in a 60 Minutes in August.
Inquiry into entire casino industry needed
The Queensland government has been under increasing pressure to hold a wide-ranging inquiry into all casino operations across the state – not just Star – and for it to include scrutiny of the casino regulator.
Shadow Attorney-General Tim Nicholls said allegations raised about casinos in north Queensland strengthened the case for a state-wide inquiry.
"I would think that there's a lot more that needs to be looked at and could benefit from a public inquiry, or broadening the scope of the current inquiry," he said.
New laws will soon be debated in Queensland Parliament to strengthen the casino regulator which includes introducing a pecuniary penalty of up to $50 million.
The financial penalty will be one of the highest enforcement actions the regulator can take short of cancelling or suspending a casino licence.
Victoria has a $100 million maximum pecuniary penalty.
Mr Nicholls said the new penalty would make no difference if the regulator had no will to implement any enforcement actions to begin with.
"You have to question whether $50 million is a sufficient disincentive for bad behaviour," he said.
"The words on a piece of paper in legislation aren't any good if the regulator or the person enforcing them is unprepared to do the job."
In a statement, Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman said OLGR works closely and continues to liaise with Queensland Police and AUSTRAC in relation to the regulation of all Queensland casinos when investigating licensees.
She said as part of his review Mr Gotterson had the ability to make recommendations to enhance Queensland's casino regulation which the government will carefully consider.
"In addition to this, the Government introduced a bill to parliament this year to strengthen our casino regulation laws. The Legal Affairs and Safety Committee's report on the bill recommended it be passed," Ms Fentiman said.
