World-class casino's rent? Just $1 a year, by Michael Warner - Herald Sun - 12th September 2008

Melbourne's Crown casino is paying just $1 a year in rent for the site of the Southbank gambling mecca.

Full details of Crown's extraordinary 99-year lease were revealed for the first time yesterday in a report tabled in State Parliament.

The deal, signed in 1993, requires Crown to pay just $1 for the first 40 years of the lease and market value for the final 59 years.

"That was determined at the time by the people who negotiated the deal," casino spokesman Gary O'Neill said yesterday.

"It was a derelict piece of land before we got a hold of it."

But Mr O'Neill said Crown had since paid $200 million in licence fees and more than $2.5 billion in taxes.

And he revealed control of the 5ha riverside property would be handed back to the state after the expiry of the 99-year lease.

The Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation report - the findings of a five-year review of the casino complex - also urged Crown chiefs to work harder in identifying gamblers likely to be punting with stolen money.

"The commission expects that Crown Melbourne will review its monitoring systems and implement changes so as to better identify situations where gamblers could be gambling with other people's money," the report says.

The report reveals an average of almost 7000 under-age youths are caught each month trying to enter the public gaming floor.

Another 2000 problem gamblers and troublemakers have been permanently banned.

One blacklisted punter was forced to forfeit more than $48,000 in winnings after being detected in the gaming area.

A total of 207 breaches of table game rules and procedures have been detected by VCGR inspectors since 2003.

But the report said Crown met the requirements of a world-class casino.

"In particular, the range and quality of restaurants far exceeds those available at any other Australian casino, and is on a par with the best of the international casinos.

"The commission is also satisfied that . . . there has generally been public confidence and trust in the credibility, integrity and stability of casino operations due to the manner in which the Melbourne casino has been managed.

"Accordingly, it is in the public interest that the casino licence remains in force."

VCGR inspectors compared Crown across a range of areas with leading casinos in Las Vegas and Macau.

Mr O'Neill said the report was an overwhelming endorsement of Crown.

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