Australia Casinos a Hotbed for Organized Crime

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Published on :

27 December, 2009

Rupert Murdochs' Australian newspapers including The Herald-Sun, continue to run excellent (and balanced) coverage on the casino and gambling sector in Australia.

Let it be known that Murdoch also has some gaming (and igaming) interests, however they are further developed in the UK sector. Media Man has incidental joined some of News Limited's b2b affiliate programs as goodwill and we utilise some of their newsfeeds, so there's your disclaimer before we swing into things.

The age old connection between casinos, gambling dens and crime continues, albeit a different kind of animal than when the late George Foreman and his "Underbelly" crew ran the streets of Melbourne and Sydney. The late "Earthquake" Tim Bristow gave me a small taste of the scene via Sydney's Penthouse Executive Retreat, and "The Golden Mile" (Kings Cross), which Sydney's "Mr Sin" used to have a significant hold on.

Mr James Packers' Crown Casino has come under the spotlight (or blowtorch) again.... in Australia, if its not the anti gambling lobby having a dig, its the press, and if not them, the police. Crown Casino spokesman, Gary O'Neil, was recently quoted that Crown "is not a convent", but that's pretty much a given.

Australian law enforcement agencies have smartly noted and actioned revelations that some high level criminal networks (and some not so smart ones also) are using Crown Casino as quite the hub and centrepiece of criminal activity.

One of the scams that the crims operate is having Centrelink (Australia's unemployment benefits service) customers, and pensioners, buying chips at the casino which are then used as part of the money laundering process.

Media Man will be attending Crown Casino Aussie Millions next month and is in negotiations with media representatives for Crown. We look forward to providing news media and gaming media will more balanced reported on the casino and gaming sector.

The writer does own shares in Crown Casino.

Greg Tingle is an Australian based correspondent for Gambling911 and the founder and director of Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com a media, publicity and internet portal development company. Gaming is just one of a dozen of business sectors that Media Man covers.

Ben Packham of The Herald Sun reports that Centrelink has alerted organised-crime investigators to 15 clients it believes are involved.

They are understood to include a Victorian man who bought almost $13 million in chips at Crown, despite being on the dole. The Australian Crime Commission is closely watching casinos after an 18-month probe.

ACC chief executive John Lawler said that it had intelligence indicating organised crime groups were engaged in "high-level gambling activity" in legal casinos.

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