New Crown boss Carruthers ‘not banking’ on Chinese high rollers returning to Australia

Crown Resorts’ new chief executive Ciaran Carruthers said the Australian casino giant is not banking on Chinese high rollers returning to Australia to boost its bottom line, The Sydney Morning Herald has reported.

“I think there’s probably been an over reliance on the Chinese tourists in Australia; they’ve been such an easy target for some of the casinos of the past,” the veteran Macau gaming executive and entrepreneur said at a meeting with staff.

“Though I have great confidence tourism will return as the international borders continue to open up, Crown will not be going down the path of the old junket model,” Carruthers said, as quoted by the paper.

Crown will continue to cater to international tourists seeking accommodation, hospitality or entertainment, he said.

Officially in his second day on the job, Carruthers said he would like to cement Crown as the gold standard for gaming, acknowledging that the business still had a lot of “heavy lifting” to do before he is able to fully focus on transforming the culture as a whole.

“I’m here for the long term. My goal is to ensure Crown is the gold standard of a responsible gaming, [an] entertainment integrated resort for our domestic, interstate and international customers,” he said.

According to the SMH, Carruthers addressed employees from Melbourne on Monday, thanking incumbent chief executive Steve McCann – who served in the role for about a year – for stabilizing the group over the past 15 months.

In 2019, an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes revealed Crown had been infiltrated by international criminal syndicates and money launderers. Since then, government inquiries in the three states where its casinos operate have ruled it unfit to hold a casino license, preventing it from opening the high-rise casino at its newest AUD2.2 billion tower at Sydney’s Barangaroo in late 2020.

Carruthers’ appointment was announced just two weeks after New York-based private equity firm Blackstone took the reins at Crown in July. Crown shareholders voted to accept an AUD8.9 billion takeover offer from Blackstone in May, ending three years of chaos under former major shareholder James Packer.

Carruthers, a former chief operations officer at Wynn Macau, said his time at the Chinese gambling hub had left him well-equipped to navigate a stricter Australian regulatory environment.

“None of it is new or alien to me,” he said. MDT