Stanley Ho locked out of Sydney's Barangaroo casino operations
The NSW government has ensured that Stanely Ho, the father of James Packer’s Macau casino business partner, does not get involved in the Sydney casino project.
Casino legend Stanley Ho, known as 'the king of gambling', is one of Asia’s wealthiest individuals.
His son Lawrence is James Packer’s business partner in their Macau casino in the Melco Crown Entertainment.
The previously secret conditions, revealed this week in the NSW Parliament, restrict Crown Resorts’ junket operations between Crown and Stanley Ho and his associates.
"Crown will ensure that it prevents any new business activities or transactions of a material nature between Stanley Huang Sun Ho or a Stanley Ho Associate and Crown, any of Crown’s officers, directors or employees or any Crown Subsidiary."
The News Ltd report says it also prevents Stanley Ho from buying any part of Crown or holding any position with Crown, and Crown has to undertake regular searches to make sure he or his associates have not bought shares in the company.
The secret conditions of Crown’s Sydney casino licence were revealed only after a battle for their release by the NSW Greens MLC John Kaye.
Stanley Ho has had links to Sydney in the past, developing the Kirribilli Grande with the Waterhouse bookmaking family on the harbour front in the 1990s.
Meanwhile the daughter of Stanley Ho, Pansy Ho says tax rules will determine future Chinese investment into Australia.
Speaking at the G20 Summit in Brisbane on Thursday, Ms Ho said Chinese customers would be tough to predict for Australian casino interests wanting to cash in on Chinese tourism.
Ms Ho warned the two proponents of Brisbane’s next casino project to be careful about trying to predict what Chinese customers want.
James Packer’s Crown Resorts has teamed up with up with Chinese property developer Greenland Holdings Group while Echo Entertainment Group has teamed up with Chinese property developers Chow Tai Fook and Far East Consortium.
Their proposals are currently with the Newman government.
“We tried to predict what Chinese customers are going to be like but you can never think you can know them enough simply because its a very big country and they are going through a very quick learning curve,” Ms Ho said.
Ms Ho said the perception of investing in Australia was still very positive.
“I have not yet had the pleasure of doing direct investments in Australia but I have been sharing with other speakers about how Australia is a relatively friendly and open investment environment,” the Australian Financial Review reported.