Highlights
- A culture of silence can create considerable barriers to seeking help in Chinese communities, experts say
- Counsellors say some new migrants and international students use Crown Melbourne as a way to “get more funds or to familiarise themselves with Australia”
- Copying Singapore’s $150 casino entry fee would deter local and social gamblers and minimise harm, according to a reformed Chinese gambler
An elderly Chinese couple lives in public housing, a space they rent for a mere $100 or so a week – a negligible fraction of their pension and retirement funds.
Unable to enter Crown Melbourne’s gaming rooms for weeks and sometimes months at a time during Covid lockdowns, the money sits idle and accumulates in their bank accounts, waiting for an opportunity such as late June when restrictions eased, to go back into the casino's coffers.
The couple has lost between $200-$300,000 over the past few years and have no savings after losing it all at the casino, says their friend Alex Li, a former gambler turned Christian pastor.
“They don’t care. What do you say to elderly people who tell you their gambling habits aren’t a burden on anyone else,” asks Mr Li.
This year, counsellors have received more calls from elderly groups who have been waiting for a Crown reopening, after multiple lockdowns shut them out.
Counsellors are concerned about gambling habits among the elderly. Source: AP
“Pension groups are at more risk because after the lockdown they will have more money to gamble,” says Gary Tsang, a welfare officer from the Federation of Chinese Associations.
As Crown’s electronic gaming machines and table games awaken, luring back larger crowds with their dazzling lights and the unsynchronised orchestra of loud beeps, chimes and celebratory jingles, another door is already wide open.
Only a few city blocks away, the gaming giant is fighting to hold onto its gaming license amid a royal commission that's advancing, knee-deep in evidence of regulatory shortcomings and Crown’s potential wrongdoings.
Counsellors working within Chinese communities say the public hearing only scratches the surface into the harrowing tales of lives ruined by high-risk gambling at the establishment.
‘Odd way of Crown minimising harm’
Chinese Peer Connection (CPC), a free counselling program offered to Chinese speakers, says they receive many referrals for gamblers from Crown.
However, counsellors say that “99 per cent” of them call in regards to revocation counselling – a process gamblers need to go through to override their exclusion from gaming venues with the written support of a gambling counsellor.
“It’s like the reverse of gambler’s help ... and an odd way of minimising harm," says CPC’s program coordinator Ivy Wong.
Chinese Peer Connection's program coordinator Ivy Wong. Source: Ivy Wong
Already during the inquiry, commissioner Ray Finkelstein has heard how Crown lets patrons gamble for 18 hours straight before forcing them to take a break.
The casino’s head of responsible gaming Sonja Bauer said it was a limit that was reduced from 24 hours last year and that it has an alert system that checks on patrons for signs of gambling harm after 12 hours.
“The system is set up to make it quite possible that someone could gamble for hours on end and not be approached by any staff,” said counsel assisting the inquiry, Adrian Finanzio, SC.
Crown Melbourne has 12 staff members employed to monitor responsible gaming and to provide brief training to other staff.
Ms Wong wants the casino operator to “train more staff” as part of its approach to its responsible gambling obligations.
The reason that welfare services don’t get self-exclusion referrals from Crown is because they don’t have enough staff on the ground to recognise people at risk of gambling harm, Ms Wong says.
Commissioner Ray Finkelstein, QC. Source: AAP
We would really like Crown to refer more self-exclusion cases.
Third-party exclusion program 'ineffective'
Mr Li says his wife wouldn’t have known about Crown’s third-party exclusion program – a scheme that allows family members or friends of people experiencing gambling harm to apply for their loved ones’ exclusion from gambling venues.
The 58-year-old former kitchenhand says “people in the community need to know that it exists”.
“The exclusion program could help some high-risk gamblers who don’t realise themselves [that] they have an addiction.”
At the peak of his own gambling problems, Mr Li says he lost $30,000 of his family’s savings after a two-day and three-night bender at Crown.
On one occasion he dropped his daughter off for her piano lesson in the city and forgot to pick her up.
I told her parking was limited in the city and that I would park at Crown instead. I gambled away until midnight before I realised I was meant to pick her up.
“Exclusion programs would help some people who have already lost self-control,” he says.
Counsellors say not only are Chinese community members largely unaware of the existing scheme, but they also have trouble accessing it.
Ina Tan, a Cantonese counsellor with welfare provider EACH, says enacting a third-party exclusion order “seems to be impossible” as it presents specific privacy challenges.
Families can face significant difficulties in obtaining documents - such as a psychological report or bank statements - proving harm in order to trigger a third-party exclusion.
“I think most people wouldn’t go [to see a psychologist] because they wouldn’t think they have a problem. Unless there were no other options and their family’s existence depended on it,” says Mr Li.
Banning a problem gambler from the casino through a third-party exclusion order is 'almost impossible'. Source: Tania Lee
“How you get those documents is already difficult,” says Mr Tsang, who also believes its implementation is “almost impossible”.
Chinese counsellors say the tricky part for clients and their loved ones is filling out the form, which is only available in English.
“They are from the Chinese community. They usually have very low English proficiency,” says Mr Tsang’s colleague and fellow counsellor at the Federation of Chinese Association, Bear Lin.
“It’s hard for them to describe [the harm done] and give a lot of evidence,” she says.
Slim chance of getting caught violating the casino ban, counsellors say
Exclusion programs have been ineffective in preventing the escalation of gambling habits, counsellors tell SBS Chinese.
“If the guards don’t recognise that you have been self-excluded, you can still enter Crown casino,” says Mr Tsang.
Exclusion programs for casinos in Singapore, Malaysia and Macau are said to be more effective as their policies rely on everyone entering the casino to provide ID.
Many European countries also require ID upon entry. 
“This means that people who are excluded can’t sneak in, as they do in Australia where ID is not required,” says Charles Livingstone, a Monash University public health professor.
Singaporean citizens and permanent residents have to pay a levy to enter the two casinos in Singapore. Source: AP
Counsellors say they are not surprised there are no facial recognition cameras on Crown’s 2628 poker machines, which means gamblers don’t get caught breaching exclusion orders by playing.
“If you keep losing then I guess you can’t be recognised. But if you win money, if you want to cash out, you’ll be caught,” Mr Lin says.
Counsellors say the chances of gambling addicts getting caught violating their bans are slim, and the possibility of them getting fined after receiving two warnings are almost unheard of.
“I don’t think they care too much about the fine. What they care about is whether they can get access to the venue so they can gamble again,” says Ms Lin.
The need for tobacco-style warnings
CPC counsellor Grace He says in the two-and-a-half years she’s been working with high-risk gamblers, she “hasn’t seen much activity from Crown” on community education.
“We know that it can help members to understand and identify gambling problems and find problem-solving skills to address these problems,” she says.
She wants to encourage the royal commission to recommend action on community education akin to the “health warnings you see on tobacco packs”.
Mr Li says ads warning people of gambling harm would be beneficial, especially campaigns that target new migrants who want to seek help but don’t know who or where to turn to.
Counsellors want on anti-gambling advertising to be treated the same way as tobacco. Source: AAP
“When I arrived here, other than work, I didn’t have any friends, nobody cared about me. I only had the casino and mahjong,” he says.
Groups at risk of gambling harms
Melbourne has the highest rate of problem gambling episodes in Australia, according to counsellors who believe Crown’s poker machines – of which there are 25 times more than the next largest Victorian venue – are the biggest drawcard, particularly for Chinese groups.
Mr Li says in the case of his elderly friends, they were first attracted to Crown because it offered free meals and $10 food vouchers. From there they started playing on the one and two-cent poker machines.
“The more you play the more it becomes an addiction,” he says.
“They have this day-by-day attitude as they don’t know if they’ll wake up to see tomorrow … They say the casino relaxes them and going to Crown provides better therapy than going to the hospital.
“You hear about stories from people in China. They say a visit to Crown casino is a must because it is a tourist destination. It’s very attractive but very sad as well,” says Ms Wong.
As a result, counsellors target their campaigns at new migrants and international students who use Crown as a way to “get more funds or to familiarise themselves with Australia”.
Counsellors say these groups can fall through the system’s cracks because there are limited ways of seeking help compared to what’s available for Australian permanent residents and citizens.
“They are not familiar with what they can access,” says Ms Lin. “When they experience mental health issues they are not covered under insurance or Medicare to make them eligible for free [psychology] sessions.”
CPC has also been trying to aim their campaigns towards at-risk teenagers. They’ve held workshops in some high schools to “plant the seed in their [young people’s] brains” but the roll-out of these talks isn’t without its limitations.
Crown has one responsible gaming officer on duty for every 870 poker machines. Source: AAP
“Not all welfare coordinators in high schools will welcome a program labelled gambling harm or addiction,” says Ms Lin, who says gambling issues in society are underestimated.
“But the problem is there. It exists. We just pretend we don’t see it.”
Casinos ‘necessary but unregulated’
Mahjong is one of the most popular games in China. Although it’s illegal to gamble in China, it’s widely known that players do use money in parlours and private homes.
While the tile-based pastime does not have to be played with money, players often place bets.
Mr Tsang fears that if Crown Melbourne is no longer able to operate, people will find other ways to gamble and it will be more difficult to control.
It’s necessary to get Crown to stay but it must be more regulated in order to solve problems and to get people to get help if needed.
Others such as Prof Livingstone want Crown to be shut down altogether.
“Casinos are not novel anymore – and are unlikely to be the reason why most tourists would visit a city. It is certainly not well regulated.
“Most money going to the casino comes from local people, who would spend that elsewhere where the casino is not available,” he says.
Mr Li says as a former gambling victim he wants Crown to stop operating in Melbourne.
“Before Australia had casinos, there weren’t as many family issues,” he says, referring to the two-year gap between when he immigrated to Australia and before Crown opened in 1994.
He says that if a casino license is to be sustained in Victoria, the government should mirror one of Singapore's safeguards - a casino entry levy.
Melbourne's Crown casino had a soft launch in 1994 and officially opened to the public in 1997. Source: Tania Lee
“For those who want to just play for a bit, the entry fee would be a deterrent. The Singaporean method is worth considering,” he says.
If they [my friends] had to first lose $100 at the door, I don’t think they’d go in … or at least they wouldn’t go every day. The strategy would have a big impact on pensioners and social gamblers.
When the royal commission was announced, Crown Resorts said it welcomed the opportunity the inquiry presented to outline how its business was being reformed to meet community expectations.
"Victorians should be assured we recognise the responsibility placed on us by the community, governments and regulators and we will fully cooperate with the royal commission," Crown executive chair Helen Coonan said.
The commission will hand down its findings and recommendations to the Victorian government on October 15 after it was recently approved an 11-week extension.
A Crown spokesperson says they do not intend to provide comment to SBS Chinese at this time out of respect for the Victorian royal commission and its processes.
But almost two months into the inquiry, counsellors say the inquiry is missing many pieces of the puzzle.
Crown Resorts chair Helen Coonan. Source: AAP
"It's difficult to imagine how Australia, as a first world country, as a democratic society, has allowed Crown to manage [their operations] in this way," says Ms Tan.
Welfare groups say they are inundated with caseloads, as well as other campaigns such as cashless cards and raising JobSeeker rates, “to then find the time to submit evidence to the royal commission...”
“We don’t get the time allowance depending on how funding works so it just makes it very tricky to get involved in these sorts of things,” says EACH financial counsellor Melanie Marsh.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to look after the local community. We’re here to support them and that’s our priority.”
Chinese Peer Connection program provides confidential telephone peer support to Chinese speaking individuals who are being negatively impacted by problem gambling. All telephone support is provided by trained, Chinese speaking volunteers who have personal experience with and have recovered from problem gambling. Call 1300 755 878.
The Federation of Chinese Association also offers a range of in-language support services for people affecting by gambling. Call (03) 9650 1293 or email
provides a list of services for people affected by gambling. A free counselling, information and support line is available 24/7 on 1800 858 858. Contact the on 1800 856 800.
