Australia Hits The Star Entertainment Group with AUD 260 Million AML and CTF Penalty

The Federal Court of Australia has ordered The Star Entertainment Group to pay AUD 260 million for historical anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML and CTF) failings. For high-risk operators and their payment partners, the interesting part is not the number itself, but the scale of the compliance breakdown that produced it: years of monitoring failures, junket exposure, and a penalty that now sits inside a financing arrangement review event.

1. In a judgment issued on October 28, 2026, the court found systemic AML and CTF violations tied to The Star’s activity between 2016 and 2022. The misconduct related to The Star’s properties in Sydney and Queensland, where AUSTRAC had brought proceedings after the breaches were uncovered.
2. The court said the failures included not properly monitoring customer activity and not addressing potential risk. It also identified over a thousand monitoring failings at Star Sydney and over three hundred at Star Queensland, alongside relationships with junket operators that allowed members to engage in suspicious activity without adequate controls.
3. AUSTRAC had sought penalties of up to AUD 400 million ($280.8 million). The Star argued for no more than AUD 100 million ($70.2 million), pointing to its precarious financial situation. The court settled on AUD 260 million, split into AUD 195 million ($136.8 million) for Star Sydney and AUD 95 ($66.7 million) for Star Queensland.
4. The payment terms matter as much as the headline figure. The penalty is to be paid in four equal installments over 19 months, with the first installment due within 28 days of the decision. The Star also said the quantum and payment terms constitute a review event under its credit facility agreement with WhiteHawk Capital Partners.
5. The Star said it is engaging with WhiteHawk and is confident the facility will remain available. Chairman Soo Kim said the company now has better leadership, an improved internal culture, and stronger operational processes to “eliminate the kind of behaviors that the penalty is meant to dissuade.”

For PSPs, acquirers, and banks that touch casino flow, this is the usual reminder with extra decimal places: historic compliance failures do not stay historic once a court turns them into a funding and liquidity event.