Australia's Federal Court has ordered The Star Entertainment Group's casino subsidiaries to pay A$260 million for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing failures spanning 2016 to 2022, after finding the company put profit over compliance on a large scale.
Australia's Federal Court has ordered The Star Entertainment Group's casino subsidiaries to pay A$260 million for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing failures. The Star Pty Limited, which runs the Sydney casino, must pay A$195 million, and The Star Entertainment QLD Limited must pay A$65 million.
The penalty is payable in four equal instalments of A$65 million on November 25, 2026, May 25, 2027, November 25, 2027 and May 25, 2028, plus AUSTRAC's legal costs. AUSTRAC had sought A$400 million while Star argued for a A$100 million ceiling; Justice Cameron Moore rejected both figures.
The conduct ran from November 30, 2016 to November 30, 2022. The court found 1,190 ongoing customer due-diligence contraventions at Sydney and 327 in Queensland, with more than 1,200 high-risk customers able to gamble through elevated-risk channels. Justice Moore said: “In effect, Star put profit over compliance, and did so on a large scale,” and that a significant part of Star's business was dependent on turning a blind eye to customers who presented a high money-laundering and terrorism-financing risk.
The penalty, the instalment schedule and the judge's findings match across multiple outlets reporting AUSTRAC's announcement of the orders, and the figures in this article are drawn from that corroborated reporting rather than any single account.
AUSTRAC brought the proceedings in November 2022, so the orders close a four-year enforcement action. The first instalment falls due on November 25, 2026, weeks after the orders, with the balance spread across the following eighteen months.