Is there another legal Australian industry with a greater criminal record than the gambling industry?
With the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) now launching an audit of Sportsbet and Bet365 — to check their compliance with money laundering laws, the NSW Crime Commission’s recent findings about the use of poker machines for money laundering, and the revelations about extensive crime, money laundering and links to organised crime of Star and Crown Casinos — gambling across casinos, clubs and pubs and online has now surpassed the banking industry for systemic misconduct and criminality.
NSW politics remains paralysed by the influence of ClubsNSW, which is opposed to mandatory debit card use in poker machines, a key recommendation from the Crime Commission report into the way criminals pour billions of crime proceeds into poker machines across the state.
Both sides of politics in NSW take huge donations from gambling interests. According to Australian Electoral Commission donations data, from 1999 to 2021, the Labor, Liberal and National parties took more than $5 million in donations from gambling interests, dominated by ClubsNSW, which paid them more than $3.4 million. NSW Labor also received more than $100,000 from unions engaged in the gambling industry.
Opposition to mandatory cashless poker machines within the NSW government is led by the Nationals, which has received around $600,000 in donations from gambling interests since the turn of the century.
While NSW is by far the biggest state for gambling donations, the federal parties have received even more largesse from the sector: around $6.5 million since 1999 — dominated by the Australian Hotels Association and its state branches. The AHA federal office alone has handed more than $1.8 million to both federal and state/territory parties; its NSW office has handed more than $3 million to the federal and NSW parties.
Between the federal parties and their state and territory branches, gambling interests have contributed more than $22 million to the major parties since 1999, making them the single biggest donor in the past quarter century. And the industry is careful to evenly split the donations: Labor across all its branches received $9.5 million, the Liberals $10.8 million and the Nationals $2 million.
What discrepancy there is between the parties mostly reflects the bombardment of the Tasmanian Liberals with cash by the Australian Hotels Association in 2017-18 to help the Liberals campaign against Tasmanian Labor’s poker machine reforms — in 2017 and 2018 the Tasmanian Liberals received $300,000 in reported donations by gambling interests.
This is why politicians remain unwilling to upset the gambling lobby and especially the clubs and pubs sector, for which poker machine revenue is a river of gold. Tens of millions in donations mean gambling is the biggest state captor of all, with a lock on both sides of politics, even as evidence routinely emerges that gambling is the biggest criminal enterprise in Australia.
Here’s the thing – isn’t the biggest scandal that this influence is purchased so cheaply? A bit more than $1m a year by a multi billion dollar industry. I’m pretty sure some gambling executives have taken home more than $29m in the last year or so…
If you look at the boards and management of these companies you’ll find plenty of reasons why politicians enable the gambling industry. A nice sinecure after politics…
“Is there another legal Australian industry with a greater criminal record than the gambling industry?” The banks? (millions of offences, see Hayne enquiry, no convictions)
Pretty close to a dead heat between banks and gambling industries for the one with the greater criminal record.
$25B a year in upwards wealth redistribution.
The stuff of LNP/IPA dreams.
As for Labor, is it composed of infiltrators, or sell-outs? May they never win a majority again.
It’s simple, lobbying must be banned, business has no place in politics
This might put out the lobbyist seeking social change, but a party and government beholden to vested interests, especially gambling, is failing its purpose to serve the needs of the people
The report actually said in the executive summary: “Based on an assessment of this material, the Inquiry found that most dirty cash being used in EGMs is being gambled, rather than being used to extract “cleaned” money.“ not money laundering. It just shows that criminals are stupid when comes to working out the gambling odds. Except where they make “contributions” to political parties.
Successful crooks have a problem with their earnings, all that cash can’t buy cars or property without attracting unwanted attention (primarily from other crooks, secondarily from ATO and thirdly from law enforcement), so gambling, drugs and prostitutes is where much of it goes. The casinos count the cash by the pallet load and there is strict oversight to ensure the States get their share.
If you’re a smart crook you set up a service industry such as hairdressing, escort service, massage service, car wash… endless possibilities to launder cash as fake clients.
Also tattoo joints- they are not parlours!
When dirty money is being gambled rather than laundered you’re right. And I wonder how the report’s data distinguishes between the two actions in order to justifys the conclusion.
Anyway, when the pokies are being used to launder dirty money they give a very good deal. The minimum Return To Player (RTP) is fixed by regulation. In NSW, for example, the machines must be programmed to give a RTP of at least 85%. If someone puts a million dollars of proceeds of crime through the pokies there, just once before walking away, they will have over $850,000 of clean ‘winnings’ to take home, at a cost of under $150,000. That’s very reasonable.
Less than tax, even after Stage 3.