Star’s risk chief says fraud could happen again if culture not fixed
A senior Star Entertainment executive has refused to rule out another million-dollar fraud happening at its Sydney casino, describing an entertainment culture that is used to putting gamblers first.
Scott Saunders, chief risk officer at Star, told a NSW independent inquiry that changing the embattled casino group’s way of thinking was taking a long time, but he had faith in its remediation strategy upon which the future of its licence rests.
Star Sydney has been accused of having poor culture. Dion Georgopoulos
Mr Saunders’ comments came the same day the inquiry heard Star’s former executive in charge of transformation frame the plan as “too ambitious”.
“I am satisfied that the technical issue that led to that event being possible has been resolved. I can’t say it would never happen again,” Mr Saunders said.
The inquiry is being led by Adam Bell, SC, and was called by the state’s casino regulator, the Independent Casino Commission, in February. It is concerned Star has not done enough to overhaul the company’s culture. If it finds this is the case, Star Sydney’s casino licence could be permanently revoked and the casino could be shut down, affecting thousands of jobs.
Mr Bell heard from several witnesses on Monday including Mr Saunders and the Star’s former chief transformation officer, Nicola Burke, who resigned in March.
Mr Saunders said he had never worked in an organisation that was under as much pressure as Star.
“It’s a very challenging environment and it’s not getting easier,” he said. “But I do feel like the plan that we put together for remediation is sound.”
The inquiry heard last week that more than $3.2 million was extracted from a so-called ticket-in, cash-out terminal last year without any urgency from casino staff to resolve the problem. It meant punters could claim their winnings multiple times from a single ticket.
Star Sydney’s government-appointed special manager, Nick Weeks, said last Monday that it revealed a “deep cultural problem”. Mr Saunders conceded the company had not resolved all of its cultural issues.
“One of my observations on the Star’s culture is that there is a little bit of a comfort with [a] lack of precision which led to the balancing issues not being escalated in the way they should have,” he said.
“It stems from Star seeing itself as an entertainment company, one where the customer is always right. We are in the process of changing that culture and changing that into a highly regulated entity.
“What that means is sometimes the customer isn’t always right, sometimes the customer has a gambling addiction and may not know what’s best for them.”
Mr Saunders said the company needed to “slow down” its process of ticking off the long-list of milestones it needs to achieve to get back to suitability.
“My view is some of what we are doing … we’re not landing fully in terms of driving change across our properties,” he said.
Ms Burke, who was running transformation for the group until last month, was questioned at length about the remediation milestones and the forecast dates to achieve them.
She said Star’s remediation plan was “too ambitious”.
“It was front-loaded,” she said. “They were ambitious in terms of a desire to expedite the program to demonstrate the suitability.”
Star shares closed at 42¢ on Monday – they have fallen 9.8 per cent since the start of the inquiry.
