In October 2015, security at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia arrested a 20 year old table dealer and handed him over to the authorities at City West complex. The table dealer, who was a student at Melbourne’s University, has been accused of rigging a dice game and defrauding the casino of over A$100,000, which he gave out to his mates who were at the table, even though they did not win anything.

After investigations were complete, his five individuals have also been arrested and will face criminal charges over the fact that they obtained monetary benefits through deception. The table dealer’s fraudulent activities were discovered after CCTV footage revealed that this group of five who were playing sic bo, a popular Chinese dice game were being paid by the dealer, even though they were losing.

Further investigation revealed that the table dealer was the mastermind behind this attempt to cheat the casino and was receiving 65 percent of the cut while his mates were splitting the 35 percent between themselves. The funds would be broken up at a car park in Melbourne University.

The Crown Casino has been in the news on a regular basis due to some form of criminal activity at its premises involving money laundering, fraud, drug trafficking, prostitution and assault. The casino was recently accused of encouraging Malaysian high roller Paul Phua to gamble at its tables after sending a corporate jet to bring him over. Phua has been accused of having strong ties to the criminal underworld in Asia that focuses on match fixing activities. Judge Michael McInerney from the County Court lashed out at the casino and its management calling it a blot on Melbourne’s reputation.

In a statement, McInerney said “What type of security they institute I fail to understand, for this type of activity to be able to be taking place so freely at the casino. I make that remark in general because over the last week and a half nearly every case relevant to this ‘syndicate’ has involved dealings and exchange of monies at the casino.”

Peter Tan Hoang, a high stakes gambler known for frequenting the Crown casino was murdered in 2014. Hoang was a key operator for a money laundering mafia that was suspected of using the Crown Casino to launder over $1 billion between 2002 and 2012.

There were accusations in 2015 that the Crown casino was used as a recruitment ground by drug smugglers to target Vietnamese women through loan sharking and then force them to become drug mules.

Representatives from the Crown casino have denied all these allegations and did not respond to Judge McInerney accusations. The casino issued a statement which said that the casino does not encourage any illegal activities and works closely with Victoria state police to ensure that all criminal activity is reported and dealt with as per state law.