‘Shame, shame, shame’: Star grilled by angry shareholders

The Star Entertainment board faced a barrage of questions at the company’s annual general meeting, as shareholders took aim at a poor share performance and liquidity concerns facing the embattled casino operator. Shareholders labelled The Star Entertainment Group’s last 12 months “disastrous. Angry shareholders questioned The Star, which operates casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, on why it was collecting key information from patrons, including sources of wealth, going back five years. Star Entertainment said it was a legal requirement that created an unfair advantage for other poker machine operators that did not face the same obligations as the casinos. These include mandatory carding of all patrons to prove who they are instead of just customers who look to be under the age of 18. “We are not playing on a level playing field. As I mentioned, our revenue is down 15 per cent, as we have had to implement mandatory carding,” Star chief executive Steve McCann said. One shareholder’s microphone was turned off after bemoaning the company’s poor result. “Shareholders are unimpressed with the performance of the board. Shame, shame, shame. It’s it's a pity directors don’t seem to show any,” he said. The Star Sydney and its casino rival Crown were given until August 19 to transition all poker machines and table games to card-only transactions with mandatory cashless gambling. The laws came in as part of a crackdown on money laundering at casinos in which large amounts of untraceable cash were put into machines and then cashed out as “legitimate winnings”. The Star Entertainment Group has previously been fined $150m for alleged noncompliance with anti-money-laundering laws after the corporate watchdog ASIC raised concerns. The NSW Independent Casino Commission (NICC) Bell Report found the company hadn’t addressed cultural concerns raised in the first 2022 report, which found The Star wasn’t suitable to hold a casino license. NICC chief commissioner Philip Crawford said The Star had only recently begun dealing with “challenges that should have been prioritised earlier”. “The Bell Report notes that Mr Steve McCann Group CEO, Ms Janelle Campbell Sydney CEO and Ms Jeannie Mok Group chief operating officer bring important experience and expertise to the process of engagement with regulators and remediation and cultural transformation, which will be vital if the NICC decides that The Star should remain as the operator of The Star Casino,” Mr Crawford said. Shares in the embattled Star Entertainment Group grew by 5.71 per cent during the AGM, as the company outlined plans to overcome liquidity concerns and return to profitability. The Star Entertainment Group recorded a $27m loss before significant items in the first four months of the 2025 financial year. Mr McCann told the AGM in Brisbane on Thursday that unaudited Group EBITDA losses for October before significant items totalled $8.5m. “We have a difficult road ahead and The Star remains in an extremely challenging position,” he said. “We have made progress on a range of important issues, have reset our remediation plan and improved our transparency and relationship with regulators. “However, revenue has continued to decline significantly while the costs of our transformation and the cost of the external advice and assistance we have required have continued to be at inflated levels.”