The poker machine industry is criminal. How much more evidence do we need?

Yesterday ClubsNSW — which has handed just under $700,000 in donations to the major political parties since 2016 alone — put out a remarkable media release.

It came after the NSW Crime Commission issued a report on its lengthy Operation Islington inquiry into the use of poker machines for money laundering.

ClubsNSW, one of the main lobby groups for the hugely powerful gambling industry in NSW, and the outfit engaged in the disgusting persecution of whistleblower Troy Stolz, reckoned it was vindicated by the report.

“For well over a year, the NSW club industry has been accused of allowing criminal gangs to launder substantial sums of dirty cash through poker machines,” it whined. “Today, the NSW Crime Commission has revealed that those allegations were — and are — completely baseless.”

In fact the NSW Crime Commission found there was significant money laundering going on using pokies. Finding No. 2 of the report is:

The inquiry’s assessment, based on analysis of several large datasets, reviews of law enforcement holdings, information obtained from coercive hearings, and interviews with both industry stakeholders and people involved in organised criminal activity, is that a large amount of ‘spending’ type money laundering — dealing with proceeds of crime — is occurring across pubs and clubs in NSW.

How much? Finding No. 4:

It was not possible to precisely quantify the proceeds of crime being laundered via EGMs [electronic gambling machines] in NSW, however the inquiry’s assessment of this figure is that billions of the $95 billion EGM turnover for the 2020‐21 financial year was likely the proceeds of crime.

The report also noted that “some people involved in serious criminal offences, when found by NSWPF to be in possession of large amounts of cash, claimed that money in their possession was EGM winnings. The accuracy of these claims is difficult to refute” — because gaming machines are regulated to ensure tax is paid, not that crooks don’t use them.

ClubsNSW was relying on a hairsplitting difference: the report found that poker machines were not an effective method for large-scale laundering of the proceeds of crime. But when criminals spend proceeds of crime on poker machines, that’s legally money laundering as well. That’s why the Crime Commission referred to “spending type money laundering”.

The other, equally risible claim from ClubsNSW is that it “welcomes the Crime Commission’s recommendations to further improve the regulatory framework”. In fact, it does nothing of the sort, because the top recommendation by the commission is that the NSW government “introduce a mandatory cashless gaming system to minimise EGM related money laundering within pubs and clubs”.

The very idea of mandatory cashless gaming enrages the gambling industry. It hates it. It’s why it forced out Victor Dominello, the NSW gaming minister who was determined to crack down on organised crime and money laundering in the gambling industry with a cashless debit card for gaming. The leader of the internal government resistance to Dominello’s plans? ClubsNSW’s good mate and then Nationals leader John Barilaro.

The gambling industry in NSW and across Australia is riddled with crime, corruption and money laundering. Inquiry after inquiry keeps revealing the extraordinary scale of criminality: the misconduct, crime and deliberate breaches of regulations at Star Casino and Crown, the extensive role of organised crime in the racing industry and massive money laundering by criminals.

Now we know poker machines are a core part of that criminality.

But the political power of the gambling lobby continues to protect it. The Victorian and NSW governments both failed to take proper action against Crown and Star despite copious evidence of criminality, and continued to let them operate.

The chances of the NSW government upsetting the gambling lobby in the lead-up to a tough election are precisely zero unless NSW Labor turns its back on its own long history of both support from and participation in gambling.

As Callum Foote reported for Michael West Media, ClubsNSW is trying to strong-arm both Premier Dominic Perrottet — who has expressed deep reservations about the state’s reliance on the misery tax of gambling revenue — and Labor Leader Chris Minns into signing an MoU to comply with the industry’s demands.

That an industry as blatantly riddled with criminality as this one still believes it can force politicians to continue to allow that criminality, worth billions of dollars, is an astonishing display of state capture.

Would the Crime Commission finding that poker machines were a key mechanism for industrial-scale money laundering by major organised crime groups, rather than routine money laundering proceeds of crime, have made any difference? Or is there no limit to the criminality that can go on in the gambling industry before politicians will finally start resisting their donors?

In which case, it will continue to enable crime, service criminals and undermine the nation’s insipid attempts to prevent money laundering. And ClubsNSW will go on bullshitting about the clear evidence of it.

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