Ville Casino in Townsville has been accused of using an unapproved junket operator to attract gamblers to its tables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Australia.- The Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation <\/strong>says it has found that Ville Resort Casino in Townsville<\/strong> breached Queensland\u2019s casino regulations by operating with an unapproved junket operator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Queensland casino law requires the approval of junkets agreements. The gambling regulator began investigating Ville Resort Casino in February following media reports. It’s now charged the casino, owned by businessman Chris Morris, with breaching two sections of the Casino Control Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The casino had been the subject of a report on Channel Nine programme 60 Minutes, which claimed the casino operator had paid “cash and loyalty points” to unapproved operators to attract high rollers. At the time, Ville Resort Casino said the report contained factual inaccuracies and that it had operated legally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week, Cairns Magistrates Court<\/a> fined Casinos Austria International (Cairns) Pty Ltd<\/strong> AU$10,000 for using junket services without authorisation. The operator had paid the junket tour operator Lawrence Fu AU$21,400 in betting vouchers to bring gamblers to Reef Hotel Casino<\/a> in Cairns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fu brought groups of 22 to 34 people to the casino on five occasions between December 2020 and May 2021. Due to the lack of written approval from the state gaming minister, the agreement violated the Casino Control Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The prosecutor for the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation<\/strong> had requested a fine of between AU$10,000 and AU$15,000, while the casino\u2019s defence requested no more than AU$10,000. Magistrate Gelma Meoli said Casinos Austria International admitted their guilt at the earliest opportunity and had fully cooperated with authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ville Casino in Townsville has been accused of using an unapproved junket operator to attract gamblers to its tables.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":14929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation has charged Ville Resort Casino in Townsville for operating with an unapproved junket operator, breaching Queensland's Casino Control Act. This follows a separate incident where Casinos Austria International (Cairns) Pty Ltd was fined AU$10,000 for a similar violation involving Reef Hotel Casino and an unapproved junket tour operator, highlighting increased regulatory enforcement on B2B licensing and compliance within the Australian iGaming sector.","focusai_entities":"Ville Resort Casino, Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation, Chris Morris, Channel Nine programme 60 Minutes, Casinos Austria International (Cairns) Pty Ltd, Lawrence Fu, Reef Hotel Casino, Cairns Magistrates Court, Magistrate Gelma Meoli","focusai_location":"Australia, Queensland, Townsville, Cairns","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.8), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Junket Due Diligence","query":"What enhanced due diligence protocols are being implemented by Australian casino operators to ensure all B2B junket partnerships adhere strictly to state-level licensing and regulatory approval mandates?"},{"label":"Regulatory Impact","query":"How might these enforcement actions by the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation influence the broader regulatory landscape for high-roller gaming verticals and B2B supplier vetting across Australia?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777000940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legal-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777000940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777000966,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000940\/revisions\/777000966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777000940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777000940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777000940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}