Crown Casino Creating Headlines

Melbourne based gambling giant Crown casino is creating headlines for all the wrong reasons, with allegations of sweetheart deals with the sate government for extra gaming table licenses and legal action from VIP problem gamblers.

The first little peice of controversy, that has been all over the Melbourne papers is a a new license granted by the Victorian Sate Government allowing Crown to install and operate an aditional 150 gaming tables in their Southbank casino.

Victorian Premier John Brumby has defended the significant gambling expansion as not likely to fuel problem gambling as the new tables are not as addictive as poker machines. He even contends that Treasury research sugests that additional poker and roulete tabels may lure poker machine players away from the pokies and therefore help quell problem gambling.

The new license represents a complete about face from the Brumby Government which for many years has criticised former Liberal Goverment gambling expansion policies as irresponsible and a blatant cash grab. It seems the Labor Goverment is now looking for additional cash and adjusting its moral compass accordingly. The new policies have been widely criticised as a seetheart deal between Brumby and Crown owner James Packer.

Crown are also in hot water and facing legal action from a former high roller customer who alleges the casino lured him to continue playing despite voluntarily excluding himself from the venue.

Queensland property developer Harry Kakavas lost $30 million playing baccarat at Crown, betting $300,000 a hand at the height of his frenzied addiction. Despite asking to be barred from Crown's gaming tables, casino operators continued lavishing enticements his way, including use of the casino's private jet, complimentry suites with a private butler and cash bags of up to $50,000.

Mr Kakavas has now enaged a high powered legal team to sue Crown for ignoring his attempts to voluntarily barr himsef frpm their casino.