Despite great efforts by James Packer’s Crown casinos to obtain a second Sydney licence or persuade current licence holder Star to split the rights, there will be no second casino in the Australian city before the end of the current monopoly in 2019.
New South Wales Prime Minister Barry O’Farrell yesterday announced that Crown’s proposal for a six-star hotel resort with high roller gambling at Barangaroo, overlooking Sydney Harbour, had moved to the second stage of government consideration.
Crown - the company that owns the big casino in Melbourne - put in an application for planning permission in September. It is seeking permission for a AUS$1bn location which will employ over 1,000 people, but Premier O’Farrell said that the site would not be permitted to have poker machines. Packer had previously contended in the Australian press that the resort project would not be cost effective without gaming.
Prime Minister O’Farrell outlined plans for the next phase of the consideration, which would be to assess the financial impact of the construction on the city’s business and the benefits of granting a gaming licence to the resort. But he emphasised again that the government would honour its exclusivity agreement with Star so there would be no new casino operating in Sydney before November 14, 2019.
