Gable Tostee taking on The Star over casino ban after incident with woman in Gold Coast hotel

Gable Tostee, acquitted of the murder of his Tinder date, has been banned by a casino operator after allegedly strangling a woman in a hotel room.

The alleged incident happened at The Star Gold Coast’s Grand Hotel.

A man acquitted of the high-rise murder of his Tinder date has been banned by a casino operator after allegedly strangling a woman in a hotel room.

Gable Tostee – who now goes by the name Eric Thomas – is now challenging the ban, claiming he is the victim of gender discrimination.

Tostee was found not guilty of the murder of Warriena Wright in 2014 after she fell from his Gold Coast apartment balcony during a Tinder date.

In shocking new claims from a tribunal case, Mr Thomas was detained by police – before being released without charge – after security found him on top of a woman in a room at The Star Gold Coast’s Grand Hotel in 2022.

The documents, published last month, reveal security were alerted to a disturbance in a hotel room on April 28, 2022, and found a woman on her back with her dress up over her hips.

The documents state Mr Thomas was on top of her fighting, and the woman told police who attended the scene that she had been strangled by Mr Thomas.

Police took Mr Thomas to Southport watchhouse. Police reviewed the evidence and did not charge Mr Thomas.

Eric Thomas aka Gable Tostee leaves Brisbane Magistrates Court after a hearing on drink-driving charges.

On May 1, 2022, Star Entertainment issued Mr Thomas with a withdrawal-of-licence notice withdrawing his membership and banning him from its casinos in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sydney.

Six months later, Mr Thomas wrote to Star Entertainment asking his ban be lifted, but members of the security team realised his previous name and substantial media attention which followed him.

Star Entertainment refused to lift his ban.

In a recent Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal application, Mr Thomas applied for the exclusion to be lifted through an interlocutory injunction, pending his discrimination hearing in November.

In the documents, Mr Thomas argued that the exclusion from the casinos has caused him “tremendous … psychological and social harm” and he was discriminated against based on gender.

But Star Entertainment said the decision to uphold his ban had nothing to do with gender, but the “very real prospect that Mr Thomas could engage in broader behaviours that might cause The Star adverse publicity”.

Mr Tostee was found not guilty of the 2014 murder of Warriena Tagpuno Wright.

“The review decisions, they (Star Entertainment) say, took other circumstances into account including Mr Thomas’ multiple instances of driving under the influence; his acquittal, under the name of ‘Gable Tostee’, of murder and manslaughter charges in connection with the death of a woman in 2014; and a highly publicised car crash in which he was found naked in the car and for which he refused to provide a breath or blood sample,” the documents said.

QCAT senior member Samantha Traves said there was no medical evidence to show Mr Thomas would be harmed by not lifting his casino ban.

The application for the interlocutory injunction was refused.

The matter was listed for a directions hearing in September, before a two-day hearing in Brisbane on November 17 and 18.

Mr Thomas was acquitted of murdering Ms Wright, a 26-year-old New Zealander whom he met on dating app Tinder while she was visiting Australia for a friend’s wedding.

She fell to her death from his 14th-floor balcony of the Avalon Riverside Apartments building about 2.20am on August 8, 2014, after a night of drunken sex and arguing.

He was found not guilty after a nine-day trial, where a jury heard a 199-minute recording Mr Thomas took of the night which captured the pair arguing and Ms Wright’s screaming.

Mr Thomas was also charged over the car crash in 2021 and pleaded guilty to failing to supply a specimen of breath and blood.

He was given a 12-month probation order.

In 2016 Tostee was disqualified from driving for 15 months for drink-driving in northern NSW, after having already served six months’ jail.

Originally published as Gable Tostee taking on The Star over casino ban after incident with woman in Gold Coast hotel