Sports betting and gambling news archive
News
archive 
News
items that were displayed on the Smartgambler front
page during 2007, with the latest material appearing
at the top.
Proceed
to 2008 news archive
August
2007
Equine
Influenza situation stabilises
With
the outbreak of Equine Influenza in Australia appearing
to have been contained in NSW and Queensland, race
meetings in other states have begun to slowly return,
albeit on a greatly reduced scale. Racing sources
have indicated that as the situation is brought further
under control extra races will be added to try and
work through the backlog.
August
2007
Equine
Influenza situation deteriorates
Despite
early optimistic talk of containing the disastrous
equine flu outbreak to an isolated pocket, the highly
contagious virus has now shown up in several new locations
across Australia. The Spring Racing Carnival has been
thrown into chaos and it now appears likely that the
some kind of delay and rescheduling of the major race
meetings, possibly even including the Melbourne Cup,
is inevitable. The tourism and racing industries are
bracing for huge financial losses, with Tabcorp estimating
that just its own lost revenue from the outbreak could
run as high as $1 billion.
July
2007
Clear
and Present Danger for Tabcorp's NSW Casino Licence?
Reprinted
with permission of Andrew W Scott
The decision on July 9th 2007 in the NSW Supreme Court
by Justice Hoeben to allow documents from the long-running
saga of Alexander Preston v Star City Pty Ltd to be
handed to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner
(OLSC) and The Casino Control Authority (CCA) suggests
that a massive time bomb may be ticking away with
the potential to destroy Tabcorp’s chances of winning
the new exclusive casino license they are fervently
trying to negotiate with the NSW Government.
Tabcorp
owns Star City, whose precious 12 year exclusive casino
license ends in September. The CCA is charged with
regulating the NSW Casino Industry (current members
= 1), and the OLSC receives complaints about the conduct
of solicitors and barristers in NSW. If the casino
operator was involved in serious misconduct or illegal
activity, the CCA would be the logical body to be
informed. If a member of the legal fraternity was
involved in serious misconduct or illegal activity,
the OLSC would be the logical body to be informed.
Preston’s
case, now in its tenth year in the courts, is complex
but essentially alleges that the full gamut of underworld
activities were both condoned and undertaken by the
exclusive NSW Casino operator Star City. These activities
include prostitution, drug dealing, gaming by staff,
corruption, inducements, money laundering and much,
much more. Representatives for Preston approached
the Court yesteday, seeking to release certain documents
to the OLSC, the CCA and Journalists on the basis
of non compliance by Star City in the discovery process.
Whilst
the Court allowed release to the OLSC and CCA, it
refused release to the media. Could the interest of
the OLSC and CCA allude to the possibility that Preston
has evidence that documents sought under discovery
were deliberately destroyed by Star City, when they
were fully aware that Preston had commenced legal
action against them? This kind of situation was last
visited during the infamous McCabe vs British American
Tobacco case which involved BAT destroying documents
in anticipation of litigation, under their euphemistically
entitled "Document Retention Policy". Being
in the lowly media, we weren’t granted access to any
documents, so we can only hope that the NSW Government,
via the OLSC and CCA and now put on notice by Crikey.com,
will be suitably cognisant that something may well
be brewing.
There
should be no rash decision to grant Tabcorp a new
license, just in case any undue findings were to arise
against Tabcorp in the Preston case. But if they must
do a new deal "for the sake of the NSW economy",
they could always do the right thing by the punters
by retaining the option to revoke any deal if it emerges
that Tabcorp has engaged in serious and/or illegal
misconduct.
June
2007
Rewriting history?
Reprinted with permission of Andrew W Scott.
I
was astonished to read this
story in the SMH, stating that negotiations
only began last week for Star City’s exclusivity to
operate a casino in NSW. In fact talks between Tabcorp
and the NSW Government have been going
on for a while. Sydney Harbour Casino Pty
Ltd (later to become Star City) was awarded twelve
years exclusivity from the date of opening the Temporary
Casino.
I remember that day well, because I was there. It
was 13 September 1995, and the doors opened to the
public at 6pm. The casino’s exclusivity period therefore
expires this September. Everything to do with Star
City is supposed to be on the table, including exclusivity
rights and tax rates.
In
my view a second casino or perhaps a boutique card
room to specifically deal with the poker boom would
be a great thing. I believe a major factor explaining
the arrogance of Australian casinos is the lack of
competition. Each State and Territory Government is
beholden to its casino because of the enormous revenue
that casino raises for them, in the order of around
$600 million a year country-wide. If the NSW casino
tax revenue was spread around amongst a number of
casinos that truly had different ownership, the NSW
Government might feel more able to withdraw or suspend
the license of a casino that breaks the rules. So
far, despite numerous breaches by Star City that have
been well documented, there has been no threat to
the license. There is simply too much money involved.
If
we had more than one casino, there would be a role
for the ACCC. It could be charged with the task of
ensuring that the casinos truly competed with each
other and didn’t collude to offer bad games to the
players. Imagine a renegade operator, operating a
small boutique style casino, offering games with house
advantages much smaller than the price gouging we
are currently seeing. That would give the punters
a fighting chance.
May
2007
Sportsbet
Australia
to petition High Court over turnover tax
Sportsbet
Australia CEO Matthew Tripp has flagged his company's
intention to use the High Court of the Northern Territory
to challenge the right of bodies like Racing Victoria
and Harness Racing Victoria to charge turnover tax
on bookmaking companies registered outside their own
states. Tripp's case hinges on the fact that companies
like Sportsbet already pay tax to the authorities
of the terrirtory in which they are licensed, as well
as the normal corporate tax rate of 30% on profits.
He
also argues that racing fields are already in the
public domain because of publication in newspapers
and specialist racing gazettes and expressed concerns
about bookmaking companies having to pay extra to
take bets on these fields.
A
possible precedent was set in the UK with a 2004 court
ruling in favour of the William Hill bookmaking firm
who argued that using the British Horseracing Board's
race fields had not infringed the Board's database
copyright.
May
2007
Crown
Casino in trouble over Blackjack rule change
An
Age newspaper report has claimed that The Victorian
Commission for Gambling Regulation has launched an
investigation into Crown Casino's change of one of
the rules of its Blackjack game, which should have
first been approved by the Commission and published
on the internet. The report states that Crown could
face fines of up to $1million if a prosecution were
successful.
The
rule change relates to the dealer holding 'soft' 17,
or 17 made up of cards that include an Ace. Normally
the dealer must stand on any 17, but the new rule
stipulates that a dealer holding soft 17 must take
one card. Although the new rule only increases the
casino's advantage marginally, the Age report quotes
criticism from various sources including one skilled
player who described it as 'greedy and disgraceful.'
March
2007
Crown
Casino sued by problem gambler
Not
long after CBA privately settled their lawsuit against
IASBet over a $17 million betting binge by employee
embezzler Kim Faithfull, another case of high roller
pathological gambling has attracted legal action.
Multi
millionaire compulsive gambler Harry Kakavas is suing
Crown Casino for $30 million which includes a damages
component, claiming Crown lured him back into playing
high stakes baccarat despite a previous self exclusion
order. It is alleged the order had been lifted under
instruction from Kakavas, but Kakavas is claiming
he was manipulated into lifting the order by
Crown executives
when they saw he was gambling at another establishment
and that should not have been contacted by Crown or
allowed to play.
The
case once again raises the issue of where the responsibilities
of gambling establishments for the welfare of their
players begin and end and could have interesting ramifications
if it gets to court.
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