Star Entertainment’s Rav Townsend under fire over 25,000 source-of-wealth checks

A senior executive with Star Entertainment has denied claims she misled an inquiry over how many source-of-wealth checks the casino operator had conducted.

Star Entertainment is under probe from NSW regulators about its conduct.

A senior executive with Star Entertainment has been accused of misleading a NSW inquiry over claims that source-of-wealth checks were not completed as stated.

Star chief controls officer Rav Townsend on Friday defended herself against accusations by Adam Bell, SC, that she misled the inquiry when she said she believed tens of thousands of source-of-wealth checks, mandated by the NSW Liquor and Gaming regulator, had been completed to the standard required.

Special manager Nicholas Weeks has been running the Star’s Sydney and Queensland casino licences since his appointment in October 2022 by the NSW independent Casino Commission following an earlier inquiry – also by Mr Bell – found that existing management were unfit to operate a casino licence.

Ms Townsend, who joined Star from Deloitte in July 2023, rejected Mr Bell’s suggestions that she had “misled” the inquiry over the source of wealth and transaction analysis the group had undertaken and which she had signed off.

“Mr Bell, at the time of signing this letter, I thought it was accurate,” she said.

“I did not send this letter wanting to mislead the regulator except now looking back at it, it could be looked at that way, but it was not my intention ... It was not my understanding when I sent that letter to the regulator,” Ms Townsend said.

Rav Townsend appeared at the hearing with her lawyer, James Beaton.

She said the group did not complete wealth checks on about 22,000 to 25,000 people because those customers had not been active at the casino for some time, or there was no contact information.

Instead Star took alternative measures, including deactivating accounts and putting a note on its system about the need for future wealth checks if the customers returned.

“For those patrons, because they hadn’t gambled here or been at the casino for quite some time, the information which they had on file wasn’t sufficient. So for that subset of patrons, they were requesting a new source-of-wealth documentation and they had put a note on the patron’s profile,” she said.

“I understood based on discussions that if we put the note on the file, that means that step was complete. So I took the guidance of that.”

Ms Townsend had not been expected to appear on Friday and had a personal lawyer with her. She was asked as to whether the steps taken were a “workaround” but she rejected this as she said it was Star’s only option.

“For these particular customers they weren’t able to get the source of wealth from them because they couldn’t contact them. And this was the only approach they could take. So I don’t know if I’d consider that a workaround,” she said.

Caspar Conde, the counsel assisting the inquiry, asked Ms Townsend whether a “workaround” in relation to transaction analysis was taken because it was not going to meet the September 30 deadline. That deadline was two months after Ms Townsend began in her role.

“I can’t comment because I didn’t come up with a plan on how to complete it,” she said.

She said the group leadership was not a cohesive unit because everyone was very busy with a long list of priorities which needed to be undertaken as part of remediation efforts.

“Each GLT member has their own priorities and focus. And from my perspective, I feel that the GLT hasn’t functioned as a cohesive unit and come together and focused on priorities together as a group. It feels like it’s been more of individuals,” Ms Townsend said.

Star Sydney head of risk Eileen Vuong agreed Star had systemic issues, as guest support officers had recorded false entries which suggested patrons gambling for hours had been checked when they had not.

“The investigation revealed we do have systemic issues with the team not completing the interactions as per our ICMs (internal control manuals),” she said.

“We are undertaking remedial actions which includes not only recruiting the back field for the team members that have had their employment terminated, but we’re also increasing the capacity of that team.”

The inquiry was told Star Sydney interim chief operating officer Peter Humphreys was not aware of rules which prohibited the use of China UnionPay cards to fund gambling.

Star Sydney was found to have a China UnionPay swipe location that allowed funds to be withdrawn out of China as hotel expenses when the funds were used for gambling.

Mr Humphreys said he knew the location of where the swipes occurred between 2015 and 2019. Mr Bell then asked if Mr Humphreys knew China Union had prohibited gambling.

“I wasn’t aware of that, Mr Bell,” he said.

“All I was aware at that time, was that there was a question from NAB as to getting some data around the swipes and what they were for. And when I investigated who should be responding to that, I was directed to send it through to the finance and the legal team,” Mr Humphreys said.

Source of wealth checks were not undertaken on nearly 25,000 customers.

Ms Townsend and Mr Humphreys were both asked about a potential reset in remediation efforts. Mr Humphreys said that reset was around the frequent nature of the 640 milestones required to be met and whether it lined up sufficiently between design, implement and embed.

“If we haven’t finished the assurance process of the design process, it makes it hard to implement those in case the design is incorrect,” he said.

“To me, that’s part of the issue that we’re re-baselining to ensure that what we implement and embed is correct and can be delivered.”

The top brass appearing on Friday were also questioned by Dr James Renwick, representing former chief executive Robbie Cooke. Mr Cooke was this week accused by witnesses of lacking integrity, withholding documents and disputing previously agreed decisions with his staff.

Mr Humphreys said he had a good relationship with Mr Cooke and found him to be a hard worker, approachable and open to suggestions made

“Mr Cooke was always demonstrating the values that we were trying to achieve from what I saw and the way he communicated to me and to the team below,” he said.

Ms Townsend said that she met with Mr Cooke every fortnight and found him to be supportive and assisted her areas where extra support was needed.

“There were however some areas where I would have loved more support or intervention which I did not get because he was extremely busy,” she said.

The inquiry continues on Monday with Mr Cooke and Star chairman David Foster due to appear early next week.