CROWN’S SYDNEY CASINO TO DELIVER $100M IN TAX REVENUE
Crown’s Sydney casino is expected to deliver an extra $100 million in tax revenue to the NSW government in its first year, just a quarter of what its Melbourne venue delivers to Victoria’s coffers.
Experts say the gambling floors in Sydney’s tallest skyscraper cannot deliver as much as promised for the state’s economy with its high-roller market decimated unless it is afforded a major change in its operating licence.
Crown Resorts was this week granted an approval to operate its casino by the NSW Independent
Monash University gambling researcher Charles Livingstone said Crown would not be the major boost to tax coffers that it could have been.
“It looks like it’s going to bring in an additional $100 million at most,” he said.
“The revenue that we can expect Crown Sydney to generate in the next year would be around $500 million based on what the Treasury has estimated their tax revenue share to be.
“That’s about a quarter of what Crown in Melbourne would make in a good year.”
Crown Sydney will not be the international high-roller attraction that was promised when it was approved by then-premier Barry O’Farrell in 2013.
Macau-based casino analyst Ben Lee said Crown now had to attract other customers from overseas, but also from within the country where gamblers are already serviced by existing casinos.
“Crown is not going to poach their people from Melbourne and send them to Sydney.
“They’re going to go after Star’s local Sydney market as well as Queensland’s market,” he said.
He believes Crown cannot operate a successful casino without poker machines — something that its current licence prohibits.
“Right now, [pokies] are not allowed but I would bet any money they will be lobbying the government very hard to be allowed to have slot machines in Barangaroo.”
Blackstone has since bought Crown’s three Australian casinos, with ILGA confirming it had also done significant probity work on that company.
NSW Treasury budget papers show the state is still expecting an overall increase gambling tax revenue to $3.2 billion in 2022-23, mostly thanks to the tax earned from poker machines and due in part to increasing taxes for online wagering.
