The Star ordered to pay A$260m for AML breaches

The Federal Court of Australia has ordered The Star to pay A$260 million for breaching the country's anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws at its casinos in Sydney and Queensland. Justice Cameron Moore handed down the penalty on Wednesday 28 October 2026 in *Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre v The Star Pty Limited* [2026] FCA 1606. Of the total, A$195 million relates to Star Sydney and A$65 million to Star Queensland.

The case was brought by AUSTRAC, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, which is the federal agency that supervises AML/CTF compliance and collects financial intelligence. It started proceedings against The Star in 2022, according to ABC News.

What the Court found

According to Lawyers Weekly, The Star accepted that its AML/CTF program was deficient but disputed how much it should pay. According to AUSTRAC's release, the Court found that The Star:

• failed to maintain a compliant AML/CTF program, and failed to monitor customers to identify, mitigate and manage money-laundering and terrorism-financing risks;
• failed to verify customer information and source of funds, to carry out appropriate due diligence and to monitor customer activity, including for high-risk customers;
• ran gambling channels with limited transparency over the source of funds and allowed third-party transactions and cash deposits without recording who the third party was;
• let more than 1,200 customers gamble through channels that carried high money-laundering and terrorism-financing risk.

Lawyers Weekly reports that the breaches of the ongoing customer due diligence rule occurred on 1,190 occasions in Sydney (102 involving high-risk customers) and 327 occasions in Queensland (77 involving high-risk customers).

The judgment also deals with junkets: arrangements in which a casino pays a junket tour operator a commission, based on the players' combined gambling, for bringing one player or a group of players to the casino. Justice Moore said revenue from junkets alone was over A$1.4 billion, and that revenue from high-risk customers between November 2016 and November 2022 was about A$1.33 billion "on Star's own calculation". The Court said these figures are not a measure of the benefit The Star gained from the breaches, but that they show "the potential to earn profits from a non-compliant approach".

"Those failures were not isolated or episodic. They were not mere oversights from time to time," Justice Moore said, as quoted by Lawyers Weekly.

How the Court reached A$260 million

AUSTRAC asked for A$400 million. The Star argued that a penalty above A$100 million could force it into liquidation, ABC News reported. Justice Moore said A$100 million was too low and A$400 million too high.

He reduced the penalty because The Star has already been punished for overlapping conduct. "[T]he Star has received penalties of $200 million for conduct that significantly overlaps with the conduct subject to these proceedings," he said, adding that its casino licences were suspended and that it has been under the supervision of a manager. ABC News reported that he also took account of the remediation work under way and The Star's financial position.

Lawyers Weekly describes the case as the first time the Federal Court has had to decide between conflicting submissions on an AML/CTF penalty, because The Star admitted the breaches but disputed the amount.

Payment and The Star's response

The penalty is payable in four instalments between 25 November 2026 and 25 May 2028, according to Lawyers Weekly. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that each instalment is A$65 million.

In court, Justice Moore said The Star's "profitability is such that it is likely to need to raise money to pay any penalty". After the ruling, chairman Soo Kim said on Wednesday, as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, that The Star would not need additional financing or share sales to meet the instalments, and could pay from cash on hand, expected receipts and cash generated by its casinos. That is the company's own assessment. iGaming Business converts the penalty to about US$182 million.

Why it matters beyond The Star

The judgment concerns land-based casinos, but checking who a customer is and where their money comes from is a basic AML duty for licensed gambling operators. The core of the case, in the words of AUSTRAC chief executive Brendan Thomas, is that The Star "allowed high-risk customers to gamble without properly establishing where their money came from".

In our reading, this is why licensed operators ask players to prove their identity, may ask where deposited money comes from, and look closely at deposits made by or for someone else. These checks are a legal duty for the operator. The Court's message to the industry was direct: "It is important that other entities are sent the message that conduct of the sort engaged in by Star will attract a significant penalty and is not worth the risk," Justice Moore said, as quoted by Lawyers Weekly.

For background, see the FATF's gambling money-laundering risk indicators, recent UK enforcement in the Rank Grosvenor settlement and the TargetLocal licence suspension, and Australia's AdStop red-flag reforms.

If gambling is causing problems, free and confidential support is available in Australia through the National Gambling Helpline (Gambling Help Online) on 1800 858 858, 24 hours a day.