Star spied on Weeks as part of war with regulators: inquiry told

Star Entertainment was spying on the diary of special casino manager Nicholas Weeks as part of a ‘process of preparing for war’ with the regulators.

Star Entertainment’s Queen’s Wharf resort in Brisbane.

Star Entertainment was spying on the diary entries of special casino manager Nicholas Weeks, including his meetings with lawyers, as part of a “process of preparing for war” with the regulator, a NSW inquiry has been told.

The extraordinary claims were aired on Monday as Mr Weeks also said Star’s management held a widespread practice of falsifying records of welfare checks for gamblers — in breach of new responsible gaming regulations — and malfunctioning cash machines that allowed customers to defraud Star of millions of dollars.

Mr Weeks has been running the Star’s Sydney and Queensland casino licences since his appointment in October 2022 by NSW Independent Casino Commission, following an inquiry by Adam Bell SC which found existing management unfit to operate a casino licence.

On Monday, the executive told the opening session of a new NICC inquiry into Star’s suitability to regain its Sydney licence that he had witnessed a push-back within the group on necessary reforms and the company was falling short in many areas.

He said based on evidence shown to him, falsification of welfare check records was widespread and no-one had raised it to him.

“In order to discharge this function, I have had to rely heavily on Star’s management team and personnel. Based on the investigation to date, it appears as though I’ve been let down by those people. That’s concerning to me.”

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Casper Conde, outlined evidence that Star was becoming increasingly hostile to Mr Weeks and his efforts to enforce compliance at Star.

He referred to a message from Star chairman David Foster last year to then chief executive Robbie Cooke that the company’s response to Mr Weeks’ findings on lagging reform efforts could be “catalyst to get rid” of him and cause “fireworks.”

Mr Weeks said that in January this year Mr Cooke and Mr Foster had found out about meetings with his lawyers and regulators scheduled for February by “somehow accessing my diary.”

Mr Foster in a text message to Mr Cooke said the meetings showed Mr Weeks and regulators were “prepping for war and we better do the same.”

Mr Weeks told the inquiry he found it “extraordinary” that Star would be monitoring his diary entries and investigating people he was meeting with.

“It’s difficult to reconcile everything that the company has told me, everything it tells the market and everything it tells the regulator in relation to its motivations to reform and to work cooperatively with the regulator to suggest that they want to go to war with the regulator and may in circumstances where their license is suspended,” Mr Weeks said.

Lighting testing at Star’s Queen’s Wharf in Brisbane.

Another message from Mr Foster to Mr Cook in February mentioned establishing grounds for a potential class action from shareholders against Mr Weeks and the regulator.

Mr Weeks said he also found it extraordinary that the “chairman of the listed company and the chief executive were exchanging messages contemplating a class action from shareholders against me personally and the NICC in circumstances where their public position and the position with me is that they’re working cooperatively to address deficiencies they need to address.”

Mr Weeks told the inquiry that NICC chief commissioner Philip Crawford had lost confidence in Mr Cooke late last year to push through a remediation plan for Star.

Mr Conde said whether Star would be found suitable to again run the casino would depend on a number of factors including “character, honesty, and integrity” and whether it had a “sound and stable financial background.”

Mr Weeks said an investigation by the Liquor and Gaming Office had found widespread falsification of welfare check records that were supposed to show patrons did not gamble for more than three hours without interaction with a staff member.

“When surveillance footage was looked at, it became clear that there was no interaction as was required and the record that they had on the Star system and the interaction was false,” he said.

“It became evident reasonably quickly that a practice of falsification of records of interactions with patrons by gaming support officers was occurring very often.”

Former Star boss Robbie Cooke in Brisbane.

Another serious contravention involved a defect in “ticket in, cashout’ machines that allowed customers to reuse winning tickets after they were mistakenly returned to them.

“Over a six-week period very large amounts of cash were provided to customers in circumstances where they should not have received it because of the defect,” Mr Weeks said.

“The upshot was that about $3.2m had been paid in from the casino by customers who had detected this fraud either inadvertently or deliberately.”

Mr Weeks said both incidents revealed there was “an absence of people speaking up and saying we’ve got a problem here and an escalating issue.”

“Until a new leadership takes hold, these type of incidents may continue to occur,” he said.

Along with Mr Weeks, witnesses at the inquiry will include former chief financial officer Christina Katsibouba, former chief customer and product officer George Hughes, ex-chief legal officer Betty Ivanoff, former company secretary Nawal Silfani, patron liaison manager Ron Wagemans, head of risk Eileen Vuong, and head of gaming Peter Humphreys.

Former chief executive Robbie Cooke, who spectacularly quit the business in March after he and the board deemed it was in the company’s best interests for him to stand aside, is expected to appear as a witness later this month.

Chair David Foster, who is currently serving as chief executive until a permanent replacement is found, is also set to front the hearings.

Originally published as Star spied on Weeks as part of war with regulators: inquiry told