The subsequent public inquiries into both these operators found an egregious litany of licence abuses and misconduct sufficient to deem them unsuitable to hold a licence.
Surely that should have triggered forfeiture. Instead,state governments were anxious about the impacts on their respective economies,employment and tourism,and the loss of the rivers of tax they received from the casinos.
They were paralysed into a position of attempted reform.
Now,the NSW regulator has seen fit to hold another inquiry into Star – the outcome of which could be to strip the company of its NSW licence or extend the imposition of a special manager to oversee its rehabilitation.
At one point The Star’s financial situation was so dire that it publicly contemplated selling its flagship casino in Sydney.
Star has twice been given an extension of time because the regulator,the NSW Independent Casino Commission[NICC],wasn’t satisfied Star was progressing its remediation process at a sufficient clip.
It’s akin to death by a thousand regulatory cuts.