Crown Resorts boss flags cuts despite regulatory wins

Crown Resorts boss Ciaran Carruthers has flagged potential changes to the company’s casino operations, including redundancies, with sustained falls in foot traffic taking the shine off multiple regulatory wins.

The head of the Blackstone-owned business told this masthead on Tuesday, after Crown Sydney was deemed suitable by the NSW regulator to operate its newest casino independently, that the past three years have seen a marked drop in trading across Crown’s casinos.

Crown Resorts boss Ciaran Carruthers.

“We will continually look at resources and make structural changes accordingly,” Carruthers said when asked about whether Crown would need to make further redundancies this financial year if trading does not pick up. The company employs 20,000 people across its Melbourne, Sydney and Perth precincts.

Crown Sydney has struggled to attract customers to its casino, closing one of its gaming floors last year and cutting 275 roles from its operations just 12 months after the $2.2 billion Barangaroo tower opened. Its margins currently lean heavily on its luxury hotel and its many restaurants, which are nearly always full.

Crown Barangaroo does not have poker machines and was designed by James Packer to attract high-end foreign gamblers who have not returned to Australian casinos since regulatory crackdowns were launched across Australia.

“We are taking a long hard look at the business. The current levels of demand are at a low level,” Carruthers said. “We are focused on getting the business be commercially viable long into the future.”

Carruthers said the challenges faced by the Australian casino industry were reflective of the macroeconomic issues being faced all industries. However, that didn’t mean compliant casinos were not economically viable.

He added that some of the regulations imposed on casinos should be expanded to the rest of the gambling sector. Crown Melbourne transitioned its 2600 poker machines to require carded play at great cost last year and rival The Star Entertainment Group has until August to do the same in NSW, but the requirement is yet to be imposed on pubs or clubs in either state.

“We fully embrace the need for regulatory change. It’s when these regulations are proven to be viable and have been implemented by us and are yet only imposed on us that it is a bit challenging,” Carruthers said.

Crown was disgraced in 2021 by two royal commissions into its operations that found extensive anti-money laundering and counterterrorism failings across the business after an investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes exposed that Crown had been infiltrated by international criminal syndicates and money launderers.

Blackstone bought Crown for $8.9 billion in 2022.

Carruthers said meeting the prescribed remediation time frames set by the respective NSW and Victorian regulators had required significant investment from its private equity owner. The company has so far spent $200 million on its remediation effort across its three casinos.

“Blackstone’s backing was critical. Their funding was necessary to get us through what we knew would be a very expensive remediation program that required us to move mountains. They knew it was going to be an expensive journey which required a lot of heavy lifting,” Carruthers said.

He said getting the nod from the state regulators in Melbourne and Sydney had shown the company has “changed its DNA”.

The head of the NSW Independent Casino Commission Philip Crawford agreed with that assessment on Tuesday, saying that Crown Sydney was a “vastly different business” to the one examined by the Bergin inquiry.

“It has also recognised the need to change its culture, to embrace concepts of sustainability and responsible gambling,” he added.

The NICC said it’s satisfied Crown is transparent and cooperative.

“The NICC also notes the strong relationship it has developed with Crown Sydney, Crown Resorts and Blackstone, that is based on a desire to ensure Crown Sydney’s casinos operations are safe, responsible and compliant.”

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