The Star Entertainment Group has been ordered by the Federal Court of Australia to pay a A$260m civil penalty for serious breaches of the country’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, ending a case brought by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) in 2022.

Justice Cameron Moore handed down the judgment on Wednesday 28 October. The penalty comprises A$195m relating to Star’s Sydney casino and A$65m relating to its Queensland operations. Star has 19 months to pay the sum in four equal instalments, with the first due within 28 days of judgment, according to the Australian Associated Press.

Court splits the difference

The figure lands between the positions put to the court. AUSTRAC had sought A$400m, while Star argued that anything above A$100m, particularly if payable within 12 months, could push it into liquidation. Justice Moore found the lower figure too light and the higher one excessive.

The judge described the contraventions as serious and “not mere oversights from time to time”, calling the conduct egregious and the number of contraventions immeasurable. “In effect, Star put profit ahead of compliance and did so on a large scale,” he said, according to reports of the judgment.

He also took account of penalties already imposed. Star has received A$200m in penalties for conduct that significantly overlaps with the AUSTRAC case, the judge noted, and he said the fine would have been higher without the remediation now under way at the group.

Junkets and high-risk customers

AUSTRAC’s case centred on Star’s failure to maintain a compliant AML/CTF programme and to carry out appropriate ongoing customer due diligence. The regulator alleged that Star failed to properly address money laundering risks arising from its dealings with the Asian junket operator Suncity and its funder, and continued to deal with them after becoming aware of reports linking them to criminal activity. The court heard that a customer with known criminal links moved hundreds of millions of dollars through the casino.

AUSTRAC chief executive Brendan Thomas said the court had found Star allowed high-risk customers to gamble without properly establishing the source of their funds, and that junkets were permitted to engage in highly suspicious activity without controls while retaining access to private gaming rooms. Because of Star’s admitted monitoring failures, the regulator said it cannot know how much money high-risk customers moved through the casinos.

“AUSTRAC will not tolerate companies putting profit over their obligations to the Australian community,” Thomas said in a statement.

Pressure on a fragile balance sheet

The penalty falls on a company that has spent much of the past five years fighting for survival. Star reported a A$307m loss for the 2026 financial year, narrower than the A$428m loss a year earlier, and its auditor EY warned in August of material uncertainties over its ability to continue as a going concern. A A$300m rescue package backed by US operator Bally’s Corporation and the Mathieson family saved the business from administration in April 2025.

Star requested a trading halt on the ASX ahead of the judgment, with shares last trading at A$0.13, against A$3.70 when casino regulators began investigating the group in late 2021. The halt runs until the earlier of an announcement or the start of trading on Friday 30 October. At the time of writing Star had not set out how it intends to fund the instalments. The judge observed that the company would likely need to raise money to meet the penalty.

The ruling came a day after Star’s annual general meeting, where chair Soo Kim, who also chairs Bally’s, told shareholders that “the fire is out” and that rebuilding could begin. On the same day Star reported positive quarterly earnings and operating cash flow for the first time in two years.

The penalty is the third major AUSTRAC casino outcome in recent years, following the A$450m penalty imposed on Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth in 2023 and SkyCity Adelaide’s A$67m penalty in 2024. Justice Moore said comparisons with the Crown case were of limited use given significant differences between the matters. Star’s next step will be its response to the ASX once the halt lifts, with investors watching for any capital raising needed to meet the first payment next month.

The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has concluded that low numbers of suspicious betting reports from some of its licensees largely reflect tight risk controls rather than a failure to spot match-fixing, although it found gaps in how many of those firms document escalation and reporting.

The findings come from a thematic review of sports betting integrity monitoring, escalation and controls, which the regulator published on 27 October. The review targeted authorised persons that had filed few or no Suspicious Betting Reports since Malta’s reporting requirements were introduced. Those obligations applied to B2C licensees from 2021 and were extended to B2B licensees supplying critical gaming services in October that year.

Scope and method

According to the full report, the MGA examined a risk-based sample of authorised persons covering both B2B and B2C operating models. The regulator did not disclose how many licensees were included. The fieldwork ran from the second quarter to the fourth quarter of 2025 and drew on supervisory meetings, documents submitted by the firms and follow-up clarifications. All findings are presented in anonymised and aggregated form.

The exercise was flagged in the MGA’s February 2025 supervisory engagement plan and sits within its wider programme of reviewing the controls that support sports betting integrity.

Low volumes explained

The regulator found that many of the firms reviewed operated restrictive betting limits, conservative market offerings and removed events judged especially vulnerable to manipulation, such as certain youth competitions. These measures, it said, substantially reduced exposure to integrity risk and the likelihood of suspicious activity arising in the first place.

The report concluded that low reporting volumes “reflected the underlying risk management processes and reliance on external monitoring, rather than a simple absence of detection capability.”

That reliance on third parties was itself a weakness. Many licensees depended on external integrity monitoring bodies and only opened internal investigations when a partner raised an alert, meaning suspicious activity was less likely to be caught if no alert arrived. B2B-integrated operators often relied on feeds from their upstream providers, so the depth of their monitoring depended on that supplier. The MGA also found that some multi-jurisdiction operators did not realise that suspicious activity spotted mainly under foreign licences had to be reported to Malta where the same market involved MGA-licensed players.

Documentation gaps

All firms had some form of internal escalation process, typically starting in trading or risk teams before moving to compliance for a reporting decision. But the level of formality varied widely. Several policies made insufficient reference to the role of the Key Compliance Function, and some firms described their escalation flows verbally in meetings without capturing them in written procedures. Documents sometimes lacked detail on the duty to report within set timeframes regardless of whether financial harm had occurred, and did not always reflect staff training or market suspension practices.

The MGA said it had requested revisions so that written procedures match operational reality. It also advised firms to ensure internal teams have sufficient access to betting data even where services are provided by B2B partners, and to combine system alerts with human oversight.

On athlete betting, the regulator found licensees used external databases, manual checks and targeted account restrictions to stop athletes and sports staff betting on their own sport. None of the sampled firms had formal agreements or memoranda of understanding with sports governing bodies, which the MGA does not require but said could add value.

Industry asks for clearer definitions

Licensees told the regulator that the lack of clear guidance on what counts as “suspicious” betting leaves them to set their own standards, risking inconsistent reporting. The MGA acknowledged the feedback but said it prefers an open approach, arguing that rigid thresholds could discourage firms from submitting information that still warrants review. Firms also floated a centralised register of professional athletes. The MGA said this falls outside its remit but that sports associations may wish to explore it, while noting accuracy and data protection hurdles.

The review follows a separate MGA thematic review of the local football betting market published in October 2025. The regulator said it will track progress through ongoing supervision and take the findings into account when shaping future guidance, leaving the definition of suspicious activity as an open question for operators to watch.

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint against betting affiliate Optival Ltd, which trades as bestbookiesandbettingsites.co.uk, after one of its paid search ads appeared for a consumer who had searched for “self exclusion bookies”. In a ruling published on 28 October, the watchdog found the ad had not been responsibly targeted and breached the social responsibility rule of the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising (CAP Code).

The ad was seen on 10 August. It carried the headline “Top 15 Betting Sites UK – Compare the Best UK Bookmakers” and invited users to claim an “Exclusive First Bet Bonus” and discover “the Best Welcome Bonus Offers” from UK sports betting brands. A single complainant challenged whether the ad was irresponsibly targeted.

Affiliate blamed automated matching

In its response, Optival said it had never targeted the phrase “self exclusion bookies”. The company told the ASA it had reviewed its search term reports after receiving the complaint and found no record of searches containing “self exclusion” triggering its ads. It supplied a screenshot of a Google Ads search term report showing no matching terms across its campaigns.

Optival said it already ran dedicated negative keyword lists designed to block searches relating to self-exclusion, GamStop and problem gambling. It argued that because the impression did not show up in its reports, it was likely an isolated incident that fell below the platform’s reporting thresholds, caused by automated query matching rather than any keyword it had bid on. The company said it would nonetheless expand its negative keyword exclusions so that all current and future campaigns were automatically blocked from appearing against self-exclusion and similar searches.

“Extremely robust controls” expected

The ASA was not persuaded. It said a consumer searching for “self exclusion bookies” was likely to be seeking information, advice and support on preventing their exposure to gambling, and that such users were likely to include vulnerable people. In that context, an ad promoting betting sites and welcome bonuses was not appropriate.

The regulator acknowledged that Optival runs a comparison website rather than a gambling service, but said the ad still had the effect of promoting online bookmakers. “Because of the potential for considerable harm to vulnerable consumers, marketers who placed ads for gambling related services should have extremely robust controls in place to prevent their ads from being inappropriately targeted,” the ASA said in its ruling.

While it welcomed the promise to widen keyword exclusions, the watchdog said robust measures should already have been in place. It concluded that Optival’s targeting controls had not been sufficient at the time, and that there was a strong likelihood vulnerable consumers trying to self-exclude had been served an ad for betting sites. The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3. The ASA ordered that the ad must not be served following that search again and told Optival to ensure its search ads are responsibly targeted.

Second affiliate case in two months

The decision follows a near-identical ruling against Smart Gravity Ltd, trading as top10onlinecasinoreviews.co.uk, published on 9 September. In that case, a paid search ad promoting “UK’s Top 10 Casino Sites” and “Mega Bonuses” appeared after a user searched for “help with gambling” in June. The ASA again found a breach of rule 1.3 and issued the same instruction on responsible targeting.

Taken together, the rulings show the regulator treating affiliates exactly as it treats licensed operators where search ads are concerned, and rejecting the argument that broad or automated keyword matching shifts responsibility to the ad platform. Both companies pointed to existing negative keyword lists, and in both cases the ASA judged that controls which still allowed an ad through were not robust enough.

The two rulings show the ASA treating ad placement against self-exclusion and problem gambling searches as a social responsibility issue in its own right, separate from what the ad says. ASA rulings carry no fines, but advertisers that fail to comply can face sanctions coordinated by CAP, and the decisions are published for operators and the Gambling Commission to see. For affiliates bidding on generic betting and casino terms, the message is that self-exclusion and problem gambling searches need to be blocked before an ad runs, not after a complaint arrives.