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Expert says Crown casino could brush off allegations unless witnesses speak out

A host in the high-roller room made a point to warn gamblers that self-exclusion would cost them benefits and freebies.

A host in the high-roller room made a point to warn gamblers that self-exclusion would cost them benefits and freebies. Photo: Simon Rankin

Shocking allegations of criminal and unethical behaviour in Melbourne’s Crown casino could go unanswered unless witnesses are willing to provide evidence against the company, an expert has warned.

In federal Parliament on Wednesday, independent MP Andrew Wilkie tabled damning evidence alleging the casino had illegally tampered with poker machines to encourage high stakes, non-stop gambling.

However, the allegations – which Crown vigorously denies – were made anonymously and published under parliamentary privilege, meaning they will not count as evidence in an inquiry.

In a 30-minute video interview, three anonymous former poker machine technicians at Crown Melbourne claimed they had been told to engage in a wide array of shocking activities aimed at extracting as much money as possible out of gamblers.

These alleged activities included filing down the buttons of the machines so that ‘picks’, provided by the casino, could be wedged into the buttons to hold them down. This allowed gamblers to play the pokies continuously, without pressing buttons themselves.

The anonymous whistleblowers also claimed they had been instructed to disconnect buttons that allowed middle value bets – leaving gamblers with the choice either of the lowest or the highest value bet.

The whistleblowers accused the casino of turning a blind eye to domestic violence, permitting the consumption of illegal drugs on the premises, and allowing gamblers to defecate and urinate while at the poker machines.

They also alleged the casino had deliberately evaded anti-money laundering rules.

The Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) was also implicated in the scandal, allegedly discovering the machines had been illegally tampered with, but failing to report or sanction the behaviour – simply telling Crown to restore the machines to their factory settings.

Andrew Wilkie is a longstanding campaigner against the poker machine industry.

Andrew Wilkie is a longstanding campaigner against the poker machine industry. Photo: Getty

The routes to sanction Crown

Dr Charles Livingstone, head of the Gambling and Social Determinants Unit at Monash University, told The New Daily that, if the allegations proved true, there were a number of options open to make sure Crown was held to account.

But he said all of them would require witnesses to come forward.

“The way our system works, you can’t prove something unless you have evidence. Clearly, it would help if we had whistleblower protections,” he said.

He said one hope was that, if the allegations were true, but the three anonymous witnesses decided against going on the record, others may come forward.

He said there were three arenas in which an inquiry into the allegations could take place. The first was an inquiry by the state regulator, the VCGLR. However, he pointed out that the VCGLR was implicated in the scandal.

This, he said, left it to either the Victorian or federal governments to launch an inquiry, preferably with judicial power. A federal inquiry could be preferable, he said, because it could extend beyond the Melbourne casino.

He said he believed the behaviour detailed by the whistleblowers happened “all over the country”.

However, Dr Livingstone said the federal government was unlikely to launch such an inquiry, meaning it would be down to the Senate to do so.

“If the casino did it, then I think they should suffer serious sanctions,” he said. “At the least, the current management needs to be very carefully considered and it needs to change the way it runs its business.

“At the worst, its licence needs to be suspended or cancelled, and its operations should cease.”

Mr Wilkie said he was reluctant to call on the witnesses to make their allegations publicly, citing his own difficult experience as a public whistleblower.

Crown rejected the allegations, and called on Mr Wilkie “to immediately provide to the relevant authorities all information relating to the matters alleged”.

A spokesperson for the VCGLR said: “We take any claims of this type extremely seriously and they will be thoroughly investigated.”

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