‘Not fit’ to run casino

Sydney: Australian casino giant Crown Resorts Ltd is unsuitable to hold a gambling licence for its flagship new Sydney resort unless it makes sweeping changes to its board and business, according to a highly critical report by an industry regulator.

The report followed a yearlong inquiry commissioned by the New South Wales gambling watchdog that exposed widespread money laundering and governance failures at Crown.

The findings deal a blow to Crown's hopes of opening the casino in the $A2.2 billion ($NZ2.34 billion) Sydney waterfront tower it has spent almost a decade building.

Retired judge Patricia Bergin, who headed the inquiry, criticised Crown’s ‘‘stark realities of facilitating money laundering, exposing staff to the risk of detention in a foreign jurisdiction and pursuing commercial relationships with individuals with connections to . . . organised crime groups’’ in the report. — Reuters