Crown Resorts to axe up to 95 jobs at new VIP Sydney casino, blaming ‘external pressures’

A year after it opened the gaming floor of its new $2.2bn casino in Barangaroo, Crown Resorts will cut up to 95 jobs as the cost of living bites.

Crown Resorts will close a VIP gaming floor and axe nearly 100 jobs at its new $2.2bn casino in Barangaroo, citing “macroeconomic challenges” which have kept high-rollers away.

The company, formerly backed by James Packer, opened the gaming floor at the Sydney casino last August after finally gaining approval from the NSW regulator.

A second gaming floor was opened several months later but has now been temporarily shuttered as the casino giant responds to an economic slump which has seen fewer top-end gamblers frequent the facility.

Crown is hoping to limit the number of retrenched staff, offering some redeployment across the organisation, which also operates its flagship casino in Melbourne and another gaming resort in Perth. It expects to re-open the second gaming floor in Sydney once business levels recover.

“Crown has made a decision to consolidate its two VIP casino floors in Sydney in response to the current macroeconomic challenges facing our industry alongside other Australian businesses,” a spokeswoman said.

“Unfortunately, this decision will impact some of our team members and we are working with them and their union to consult on their options in the hopes of placing as many as people as possible in other roles. Our priority is to support our people through this process, and manage these changes with care and respect.”

“To maintain the world-class entertainment experience our guests expect, we will be making some layout enhancements to the casino floor that remains operational.”

US private equity group Blackstone took over Crown for $8.9bn in June last year. The redundancies come after the Reserve Bank has hiked interest rates 12 times since May last year and Crown chief executive Ciaran Carruthers has called for more workers to return to the office to revitalise capital city economies.

Crown Resorts CEO Ciaran Carruthers. Picture: David Caird

“We are still behind where we were pre-pandemic and part of that is the CBD hasn’t returned to full vibrancy as yet. Work from home has certainly given us a challenge,” Mr Carruthers said in June.

“From Thursday afternoon through to Tuesday the city’s significantly quieter and I think that’s also having an impact on both domestic and international tourism. The city is just not as vibrant as many of our tourists have expected.

“Their (business owners’) belief is the customers aren’t there – and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because customers won’t go there because they believe businesses are closed.”

The Crown spokesman said the company remained committed to making Barangaroo a success.

“To maintain the world-class entertainment experience our guests expect, we will be making some layout enhancements to the casino floor that remains operational,” she said.

Crown has also been heavily penalised by gambling and financial crime regulators - with fines to date totalling $700m - after three inquiries in three states revealed a spate of historical offences, including facilitating money laundering and organised crime.

It has since spent $13m on a suite of gambling reforms to make its safer and more compliant.

Changes include mandatory carded play, pre-commitments, cashless gaming and enhanced data sharing. Mr Carruthers said last month the reforms may hit the company’s profits in the short-term but will strengthen its earnings in coming years.

“One of the perceptions at the moment is that all of these measures, particularly for a resort like Crown Melbourne - but the same goes across Perth and in Sydney - is that it will be negative for the casinos in terms of our commercial viability,” Mr Carruthers said.

“The way I look at it is … people have forgotten that we’re an entertainment integrated resort with so much more to offer and our intention as we roll this plan out is to act aggressively and genuinely to make it a safe environment for people to enjoy.”

Originally published as Crown Resorts to axe up to 95 jobs at new VIP Sydney casino, blaming ‘external pressures’