Crown and Star Sydney Fined AU$2.25m After 16-Year-Old Gambled His Way to Silver Membership

Key Points

• A 16-year-old individual from Cromer has accessed Crown Sydney on 19 occasions and The Star Sydney on 3 occasions by using a fake driver’s licence between April and August 2025, during which he gambled AU$21,000 and had 91 free drinks without being caught.
• The Independent Casino Commission of NSW has penalised Crown Sydney AU$1.75 million and The Star Sydney AU$500,000, noting that co-operation from the companies does not offset the damage caused by multiple minor access problems.
• The Star Sydney, which was issued a suspended licence back in 2022 and fined a further AU$10 million in June 2026, now has even more pressing questions around the efficacy of its compliance system.

A Teen, a Fake Licence, and 91 Drinks Nobody Questioned

Between April and August 2025, a 16-year-old boy residing in Cromer in Sydney’s Northern Beaches entered Crown Sydney a total of 19 times with a fake driver’s licence. The staff did not merely allow entry to this individual, but signed him up for the Crown Rewards program, processed table game betting, and gave him 91 free drinks. On some of the occasions, he was accompanied by his mother. He eventually risked a sum total of AU$21,000 and got points which were enough to make him a silver member of the casino. The significance of that fact cannot be underestimated.

That last detail matters more than it first appears. Crown Sydney does not operate poker machines or slot machines, as NSW authorities have barred the venue from running them. Points come only from table games, calculated on bet size, game type, and time played. Reaching silver requires 10,000 earned points across those interactions. Getting there over 19 visits, with staff regularly engaging throughout, was not a slip at the door. This failure became inevitable at every point of the process.

The youth also visited The Star Sydney three times within the same four-month period and gambled about AU$395 before his fourth visit was curtailed. He later sought voluntary self-exclusion online, before any formal ban existed.

The Fines, the Findings, and What Regulators Said Out Loud

NICC declared the fines on 19 August 2026, after the L&GNSW investigation, which was subsequently forwarded for disciplinary action. Crown Sydney was charged AU$1.75 million. The Star Sydney had to pay AU$500,000. The discrepancy between the figures is due to two things—the disparity in the number of visitors and the extra breach committed by Crown Sydney.

NICC Chief Commissioner Philip Crawford acknowledged both venues had accepted responsibility but was clear that acceptance changed nothing about the gravity of what happened. “This does not diminish the seriousness of allowing a 16-year-old to enter casino gaming areas and gamble away a significant amount of money,” Crawford said. “In the case of Crown Sydney this also included the illegal service and consumption of complimentary alcohol. Maintaining effective identity verification processes is not only a necessary tool in the protection of minors but for detecting fraud and criminal activity in NSW casinos.”

L&GNSW Executive Director of Regulatory Operations Dimitri Argeres focused on the person at the centre of it: “The breakdown in safeguards that allowed a vulnerable young person to repeatedly access casino gaming areas and suffer actual harm is unacceptable. Where breaches are identified, we will investigate and refer matters to the NICC for disciplinary action.”

L&GNSW has banned the teenager from both casinos for five years, beginning on the day he turns 18. As per the provisions of the Casino Control Act 1992, fines up to AU$100 million can be imposed on each of the operators by the NICC. In light of the aforementioned ceiling amount, AU$2.25 million is a far cry from it. That gap between the actual fine and the maximum also tells you how much room regulators have left themselves if behaviour does not change.

The Crown Told the Regulator – The Star Said Nothing

Crown Sydney informed the regulator itself regarding the occurrence after realising that the individual was underage. “We reported to the regulator after we became aware of the individual’s age and co-operated fully with its investigation into this matter. We’ve continued to strengthen our systems and controls since that time, including ID fraud identification capabilities, training and technology improvements,” said an official.

Star Sydney did not self-report. Following the NICC announcement, a number of media houses approached Star Sydney for a comment but got no response at all. Self-reporting would not help Crown Sydney avoid the bigger penalty considering the disparity in the frequency of occurrences, 19 versus three, yet there is something in how each venue responded when the issue came to light.

For The Star, Another Fine on an Already Heavy Record

Crown Sydney takes a significant penalty and sets about rebuilding. For The Star Sydney, this latest fine lands on top of a regulatory record that has grown difficult to ignore.

Star Sydney has been functioning on a suspended license since October 2022, marking its fourth successive year without an operating license. The state-appointed manager, Nicholas Weeks, has been overseeing operations ever since, extending his period of management until 30 September 2026. Two separate suitability inquiries, both led by Adam Bell SC, have examined the casino’s operations. The Bell Report, published in August 2024, ran to more than 500 pages and found The Star had failed to complete six of the original 30 remediation recommendations from the first ruling. Among the documented problems were falsified responsible gambling welfare checks, a ticketing machine fraud that went undetected for weeks, and a governance structure in which the casino’s own board rarely met.

However, the June 2026 penalty imposed on The Star Sydney is an additional AU$10 million due to previous breaches of compliance, particularly allowing gambling for 36 hours without a break. Fifty per cent of the penalty imposed resulted from shortcomings in the management of risks of money laundering from July 2023 to September 2025. Moreover, The Star Entertainment Group experienced a statutory loss of AU$109.7 million for six months ending December 2025. Although this AU$500,000 minor-access penalty is relatively small, it comes at a time when the casino does not need any more publicity at all.

Sydney Has Seen This Before, and the Fines Keep Climbing

This is certainly not the first time that underage access has led The Star into trouble. In August 2020, the casino was issued with a fine of AU$90,000 for instances dating back to 2019 where minors had been found gambling or drinking, with one of those minors being a 12-year-old girl who was brought in by her mother through the exit doors of The Star. For instance, in 2019 alone, there were 32 such incidents reported by The Star, while in 2018 there were 35.

The fine payable for similar breaches is AU$90,000 in 2020 compared to AU$500,000 in 2026. However, the 2026 breach was much more prolonged than the 2020 one. Still, the direction is plain: NSW regulators are raising what it costs to fail. Whether those amounts are high enough yet to drive lasting change across the industry is the question regulators have left open by staying far below the AU$100 million ceiling they are authorised to use.

Expert Analysis

In the case of Crown Sydney, what comes across is not the fact that a false ID managed to pass the security checks once. It is the fact that the system continued rewarding the holder of such an ID throughout the process. “Silver member, 91 drinks served, 19 entries detected: each one of these involves an encounter with staff where nothing is questioned.” This is what gaming consultancy SCCG Management noted about the strict position adopted by NSW regulators.

For The Star, the decisive moment arrives in September 2026, when Nicholas Weeks’ oversight period expires. The NICC must then decide whether to extend the arrangement, restore the licence, or go further. The casino enters that decision carrying a suspended licence, two suitability rulings, an AU$10 million fine, a minor-access penalty, and nine-figure losses. Regulators have the authority to reach well beyond AU$2.25 million. Whether The Star’s latest remediation commitments are enough to hold that response off is the question that now defines its future.