Former Australian veterans minister De-Ann Kelly tied to LuckyBet, a Curaçao-licensed offshore casino later warned by ACMA

ABC, citing an investigation by Casino Secrets, says former Australian veterans minister De-Ann Kelly was a co-founder and former co-owner of LuckyBet, an offshore operator licensed in Curaçao. The useful part for high-risk payments teams is not the irony; it is the compliance trail: the same operator later drew an official warning from ACMA in September 2025, and its Curaçao license was then revoked by the CGA at the end of 2025.

1. Kelly is described as a former senior figure in LuckyBet’s ownership and compliance structure: she was a major shareholder and chief compliance officer, while her son, Ian Park, was director and the second major shareholder.
2. The CGA, Curaçao’s regulator, reportedly flagged the setup in March 2024 when LuckyBet applied, noting that combining the roles of shareholder and compliance officer looked suspicious. For PSPs, that is the sort of governance detail that tends to matter long before a formal enforcement action does.
3. The political angle is straightforward: Kelly supported the Interactive Gambling Act in 2001, and 23 years later she was connected to an offshore operator operating in the very space that law sought to restrict. The source frames that as a contradiction; the market will read it as a reminder that ownership and control can move in ways public biographies do not capture.
4. By the end of 2025, the CGA had revoked LuckyBet’s license, but the casino’s website reportedly continued to operate. That gap between licensing status and live processing is exactly the kind of thing acquirers and payment partners have to watch for, because web presence and regulatory status do not always move in lockstep.

The source does not give transaction volumes, processing banks, or exact payment methods, but it does show the usual offshore pattern: licensing, ownership, and compliance can be formally separated on paper and still sit in the same room. For high-risk PSPs, that is usually where the questions start.