Australia’s largest listed casino company could be thrown into administration when a court hands down a massive penalty for historical money-laundering violations.
Financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC launched legal action against The Star Entertainment Group in 2022, arguing for the Federal Court to impose a $400 million penalty for what it said were “manifest failures”.
But the company argued that any penalty over $100 million would send it into liquidation.
The court heard one man was allowed alongside many other high-risk gamblers to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars through the casinos, despite his known criminal links.
These concerns fell on deaf ears of senior management who failed to impose adequate anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism-financing controls, it heard.
Justice Cameron Moore is due to hand down his decision on Wednesday morning.
The Star, which owns casinos in Sydney and the Gold Coast and operates one in Brisbane, has been dealing with a raft of scandals and license suspensions involving years of money laundering, organised crime infiltration and governance failures.
US gaming giant Bally’s Corp saved the business from administration in April 2025, allowing its chair, Soo Kim, to step up to the same position at Star.
Speaking at the group’s annual general meeting on Tuesday, Mr Kim predicted that the “fire is out”.
“I didn’t come here to say ‘mission accomplished’,” Mr Kim said.
“I came here to say, the fire is out, and now the rebuilding starts.”
The vast majority of customers weren’t involved in malfeasance or unwanted behaviour and the company should welcome them, Mr Kim added.
Star’s ex-head Matthias Beikir was fined $700,000 in June for failing to inform the company’s board of suspicious conduct committed by Chinese junket operator Suncity in 2018 and 2019.
In the same month, Star Sydney was hit with $10 million in fines for regulatory breaches, including exceeding gaming time limits and failing to properly vet patrons for links to criminal and terrorist activity.
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