On-site government inspectors will no longer operate permanently within The Star casino in Sydney, local media reported. The announcement comes after New South Wales Deputy Premier Troy Grant noted that regulatory capture could occur due to the permanent presence of inspectors within the gambling venue as they have thus become too close to the industry they had been hired to regulate.
However, that statement was somewhat contradicted by the results from five independent reports on The Stars operations that have been conducted over the span of almost two decades. None of the said reports detailed any potential risk of the occurrence of regulatory capture for inspectors at the venue.
Generally speaking, inspectors are appointed to monitor whether the casino complies with its license terms. It is also their responsibility to detect any suspicious activities at the gambling venue, particularly money laundering.
Earlier this week, Mr. Grant presented a legislation, under which inspectors will no longer operate on-site at Sydney’s Star casino. There will not be any on-site inspectors at the planned Crown casino at Barangaroo, as well. If everything goes according to plan, the latter gambling venue will open doors in 2019.
The inspectors will now work off-site The Star and will mainly be used for random compliance operations. They will be employed at Liquor and Gaming NSW, a newly introduced regulatory body which will be in charge of monitoring and regulating local gambling venues as well as registered pubs and clubs.
Upon presenting his legislation, Mr. Grant told New South Wales legislators that the group of on-site inspectors has long been exposed to risk of regulatory capture. However, with the newly introduced regulatory body, which is to be governed by the state Department of Justice, the risk will be considerably reduced and the regulation of Sydney’s gambling venues will be much more effective.
Commenting on Liquor and Gaming NSW, a spokesperson for Mr. Grant told media that the new body will have much more capacity to conduct “risk-based and intelligence-led operations” at both The Star and Crown’s Barangaroo casino.
At present, there are three inspectors positioned at The Star. Under the newly introduced model, up to 100 inspectors will be able to carry out regulatory operations at the casino whenever those are needed, the spokesperson explained.
