## Perths Crown Casino Under Fire for Allegedly Extending Unlawful Credit to Players
An ongoing royal commission probing the Crown Perth Casino has uncovered that the establishment furnished illicit credit lines to both foreign and domestic players.
Testimony revealed that Crown Perth’s Chief Executive, Lonnie Bossi, conceded to endorsing the act of granting credit to gamblers. This practice is strictly forbidden under Western Australia’s Casino and Gaming statutes.
Further fueling the dispute, the royal commission unearthed that Crown Perth had devised strategies to implement China Union Pay mechanisms. This would have enabled Chinese players to directly channel funds to the casino from their Chinese bank accounts. Although this system initially secured the green light from gaming regulators, the scheme was ultimately abandoned following the apprehension of Crown personnel in China back in 2016.
The inquiry also brought to light that Bossi was a co-signer on a Riverbank financial account. This particular account was flagged earlier this year by the Bergin Inquiry for its purported involvement in money laundering activities amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Apprehensions surrounding the account’s potential misuse for money laundering prompted the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) to shut down its Riverbank accounts in 2014, with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia following suit in 2019.
When confronted about the account closures, Bossi remarked, “This transpired a number of years ago, and I was not privy to the daily banking operations at that time. In retrospect, I should have delved deeper into the matter back then.”
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