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Poker machine checks need close monitoring
Message was posted: 12:05 Jul 5th, 2006

User: AussieAussieAussie Rank: Casino Gold: 2727CG Contributor rating: 5680 Status: Offline

Gambling news from http://www.theage.com.au/ Dirty money has to become clean if it is to be of any use to criminals, and a principal way of doing this is through gambling. The revelations in The Age that associates of drugs fugitive Tony Mokbel were given the OK to operate poker machines in a country hotel are disturbing. There is no suggestion that Natalie Doumani, the woman who was granted a five-year licence to operate poker machines at the Red Lion Hotel in Kilmore, is anything but an honest operator. The Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation found she and her associates were "suitable" and of "good repute". The hotel is owned by Mokbel's estranged wife, Carmel. Mrs Doumani and her husband, Jack, have known the Mokbels for 30 years. Tony Mokbel was sentenced in March in absentia to 12 years' jail for trafficking in cocaine. The broader issue, however, is the procedure by which operators are granted licences. The commission's chief executive, Peter Cohen, is investigating the granting of the Kilmore licence, but it raises the question: how many more Kilmore-like episodes are there? The Opposition is calling for a judicial review, and says it is unacceptable for the commission to investigate itself. There is some merit in this argument. Gambling provides the State Government with well over a $1 billion annually, and it behoves the Government to ensure that crime, in any form, does not soil the integrity of the industry. Tattersall's, which has 13,750 machines, wants the industry enlarged. It says its probity checks have prevented criminal infiltration. However, a Department of Justice report says poker machines are a primary source of money laundering in Victoria. Clearly, both views are irreconcilable. That it has happened once is proof enough that an audit is needed into the standards by which licences are granted.