Crown Resorts Sydney finally opens casino floor

Long overdue, the arrival of the Crown Resorts casino in Sydney is finally at hand with the company launching its gaming floors at the Barangaroo property this Monday. It took the property some 18 months after the hospitality business welcomed its first guests to go ahead with the official opening.

In the past year and a half, Crown Sydney casino had to comply with a number of regulatory demands as well as completely overhaul its C-level lineup in order to be deemed ready to hold a temporary license. The casino’s opening has now been confirmed but this doesn’t mean that the property is completely out of the woods.

Carving out a temporary peace treaty with the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA) is contingent on whether Crown Resorts’ property will meet regulatory requirements and live up to its pre-set goals. ILGA will not let matters entirely in Crown’s own hands either.

The regulator has confirmed the appointment of Gary Gill from Kroll Consultancy who will now be overseeing the day-to-day at Crown Sydney’s newly opened gaming floor and determine, at the end of a two-year period, whether the property has truly lived up to industry standards.

In the meantime, Crown Resorts has gone ahead with the launch of its gaming facilities. One of the two gaming rooms has been opened on Monday, to wit the Crystal Room. The Mahogany Room will have to wait until a later opening date is set for it as well. This doesn’t mean that recreational and high roller players will feel ill at ease at the Barangaroo property.

There are 160 gaming tables along with 70 electronic table games as well as the Sky Salons, which is a dedicated series of hush-hush lounges, 12 of them as a matter of fact, that will give high rollers their privacy. The festivities at Crown have been reported on by a number of media outlets in Australia and beyond, but Philip Crawford, ILGA’s chairman, has cautioned that exultations should not distract from the task at hand.

That is ensuring that casinos in New South Wales operate up to the designated standard. Crawford told the Australian Financial Review that what had happened across Australia’s casinos in recent months and years simply could not and shall not happen again in New South Wales. Crown Resorts is similarly optimistic with CEO Simon McGrath confident that the property is well on track to retain its license after the monitoring period is over.

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