Federal Court orders The Star to pay A$260m for AML/CTF breaches

Wei Ling Tan Wei Ling Tan

Reviewed by NV Global editorial team

Empty hearing room with a blank document lit by a single desk lamp on a long table

Australia’s Federal Court ordered a A$260 million penalty against The Star on 28 October 2026 over failures to verify source of funds and monitor customers.

Australia’s Federal Court ordered The Star Entertainment Group to pay a penalty of A$260 million on 28 October 2026, after finding the casino operator failed to maintain a compliant AML/CTF program and failed to monitor customers for money laundering risk.

What happened

AUSTRAC announced the decision the same day. The Court found The Star Entertainment Group (The Star) failed to maintain a compliant anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) program, and failed to monitor customers to identify, mitigate and manage money laundering and terrorism financing risks, according to the regulator’s release. AUSTRAC commenced the civil penalty proceedings on 30 November 2022 against The Star Pty Limited and The Star Entertainment QLD Limited.

The contraventions included failures to verify customer information and source of funds, conduct appropriate due diligence, and monitor customer activity, the release states. It says more than 1,200 customers were able to gamble through channels carrying elevated money laundering risk. Those channels offered limited transparency over the source of funds and allowed third-party transactions and cash deposits where the third party’s identity was not recorded.

The A$260 million is the penalty ordered in these proceedings. Separately, in setting that amount, Justice Moore noted that The Star has already received penalties of A$200 million for conduct that significantly overlaps with the conduct in this case, that its casino licenses were suspended, and that it has been under the supervision of a manager. The A$200 million is not part of this order.

…a significant part of Star’s business was dependent upon turning a blind eye to customers who presented a high ML/TF risk.

Justice Moore quoted in AUSTRAC, "The Star ordered to pay $260 million for serious AML/CTF breaches", 28 October 2026

The Star had published no statement on the judgment on its ASX announcements or media releases pages at the time of writing; its most recent announcement on those pages is dated 27 October 2026.

Why it matters

The judgment attaches a figure to contraventions that are, in substance, customer-verification failures. The findings name steps that were not completed — establishing where a customer’s money came from, conducting appropriate due diligence, and monitoring customer activity after onboarding. AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said the Court found The Star did not simply fail to complete the right checks, but allowed high-risk customers to gamble without properly establishing where their money came from.

The reasoning on the amount matters to any group facing parallel proceedings. Justice Moore weighed penalties already imposed for significantly overlapping conduct, alongside the license suspensions and the supervision of a manager, in arriving at the figure.

Who it affects

  • Casino operators and other AUSTRAC reporting entities in the Australian gaming sector
  • Operators running junket, private gaming room or other high-roller channels
  • Compliance teams handling third-party funding and cash deposits in higher-risk channels
  • Businesses whose customers have been excluded by a regulator in another jurisdiction

What businesses should do

  1. Check that source-of-funds conclusions for higher-risk customers are evidenced per customer and dated, not described only at policy level — verification of customer information and source of funds is named in the findings.
  2. Separate onboarding controls from ongoing monitoring in testing. The finding was a failure to monitor customers to identify, mitigate and manage ML/TF risk, which is a post-onboarding control.
  3. Record the identity of third parties funding a customer’s play or account. Unrecorded third-party transactions and cash deposits are named in the release as a feature of the channels concerned.
  4. Confirm that an exclusion decision by a regulator or operator in another jurisdiction changes a customer’s risk rating in your own systems.

Sources

Regions