Crown Sydney and The Star Sydney Fined $2.25m After 16-Year-Old Used Fake Licence

By Daniel Harper, Editor-in-Chief
Published 20 August 2026

The NSW Independent Casino Commission (NICC) announced on 19 August 2026 that it had fined Crown Sydney $1.75 million and The Star Sydney $500,000, a combined $2.25 million, after a 16-year-old gained entry to both casinos’ gaming areas using a counterfeit driver’s licence. The breaches took place between April and August 2025 and were investigated by Liquor & Gaming NSW (L&GNSW), which referred the matter to the NICC for disciplinary action.

What happened

The teenager entered Crown Sydney on 19 separate occasions during that period. At Crown he reached silver status in the loyalty program and was served complimentary alcohol, which the NICC treated as a separate breach covering the illegal service and consumption of alcohol by a minor. He also entered The Star Sydney three times. Neither casino’s identity checks detected the fake licence.

NICC Chief Commissioner Philip Crawford described the breaches as significant failures, pointing to a 16-year-old being able to enter casino gaming areas and gamble away a significant amount of money. He said identity verification is a necessary tool for protecting minors and also helps casinos detect fraud and criminal activity. The amount gambled has not been published.

Both casinos accepted responsibility and undertook to improve identity verification and customer onboarding and to provide additional staff training. L&GNSW Executive Director of Regulatory Operations Dimitri Argeres referred to a breakdown in safeguards that let a vulnerable young person repeatedly access gaming areas, and said the regulator would keep monitoring casino compliance with internal controls and refer future breaches to the NICC.

L&GNSW has also excluded the young person from both casinos for five years, starting from his 18th birthday.

The penalty in context

Under the Casino Control Act 1992 (NSW), the NICC can impose fines of up to $100 million for serious breaches. The penalties in this case are a small fraction of that ceiling, but the larger fine for Crown reflects the higher number of entries and the alcohol and loyalty program findings.

The case comes at a sensitive time for both operators. The Star Sydney’s casino licence has been suspended since October 2022 and the venue operates under a NICC-appointed manager, while Crown Sydney received its gaming licence only after a lengthy suitability process following the 2021 Bergin inquiry. Both groups present remediation of their compliance and risk controls as central to their regulatory standing.

Age checks online and offline

The legal gambling age is 18 in every Australian state and territory. Land-based casinos check identification at entry, and licensed Australian wagering services must verify a customer’s identity before they can bet. Our guide to gambling age and age verification explains how those checks work.

Offshore online casinos are not bound by Australian verification rules. Many apply know-your-customer checks only when a player requests a withdrawal, rather than at sign-up, which is one of the differences covered in our comparison of online and land-based gambling and our explainer on casino KYC verification.

Parents and carers who are worried about a young person’s gambling can contact Gambling Help Online on 1800 858 858, available 24 hours a day. Adults can also self-exclude from licensed online wagering through BetStop, and from land-based venues through the exclusion schemes run by each state.

Sources

• iGaming Business: The Star Sydney and Crown Sydney fined A$2.25 million over underage entry (21 August 2026)
• G3 Newswire: Crown and The Star fined for allowing minor to enter their Sydney venues (19 August 2026)
• Gambling News: Two Australian casinos fined for letting a minor play multiple times

Header photo: Crown Sydney4 by Collywolly, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.