Pubdate: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 Source: Age, The (Australia) Copyright: 2000 David Syme & Co Ltd Contact: 250 Spencer Street, Melbourne, 3000, Australia Website: http://www.theage.com.au/ Author: Hugh Martin HEROIN MAN GAMBLED $94M AT CASINOS A man who is now serving an eight-year jail sentence for heroin trafficking had gambled more than $94million of drug money in six months through the former Sydney Harbor Casino, now Star City, before his arrest, it was reported last night. Duong Van Ia, known to the casino as Van Duong, had been its second-biggest high-roller before he was arrested in 1998, according to the ABC's Four Corners television program. Despite managers being aware that their prize client was suspected by police of drug trafficking, Van Duong gambled as much a $24million in a month. He had been identified as one of Australia's best baccarat players under the casino's "player development" program, which targets ethnic communities, the program alleged. New South Wales Casino Control Authority chairwoman Kaye Loder told the program that she was sorry that police in 1997 banned Van Duong from the temporary casino, which became Star City casino later that year. "I'm sorry to see the money go out of NSW, but I'm speaking personally," she said. She said she would not necessarily support background checks for high-rollers who brought in huge sums of cash to the casino. "If you have a legal casino, at least you regulate the gambling that is available and the state obtains some benefit from the revenue," she said. "If that money is coming from heroin deals and is going into casino gaming and is coming back to the state in the way of revenue, it's a matter of debate about whether or not that's a good thing, or an acceptable thing." Van Duong had been suspected of supplying the western Sydney suburb of Cabramatta with most of its heroin and was arrested after being filmed by police accepting $75,000 for a consignment of heroin. Van Duong's gambling, which extended to Crown Casino in Melbourne and Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast after he was banned from the Sydney Harbor Casino, demonstrated an increasing acceptance of illegal activity by Australian casinos, Four Corners said. It said that loan-sharking, prostitution and drunken gambling were commonplace, and that Australia's $95billion gambling industry went to great lengths to increase its customer base. "Casinos are not at all fussy about the kind of people they attract and where their money comes from," ABC journalist Quentin McDermott said in the documentary. The show related instances of gamblers walking into casinos with brown paper bags containing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The NSW Casino Control Authority is carrying out a statutory investigation into how Sydney's casino was run, McDermott said. However, it is not just the high-rollers casinos are targeting. "Its customer base is gamblers, and in Australia, in increasing numbers, they are bussed into casinos to play the gaming tables, they are given incentives to visit pubs and clubs to play the pokies, or they simply stay at home to be on the internet," Mr McDermott said. Today for the first time gamblers will be able to play two-up on the Internet. On-line gambling is targeting a younger market that has money and understands the Internet, the documentary found. The United States has banned Internet gambling and Prime Minister John Howard has proposed a one-year moratorium on the practice. The pressure to increase gambling in Australia, which leads the world in the design and development of gambling machines, goes beyond the gamblers, the program claimed. "The industry is exerting more and more pressure to get as big a return as possible from each machine," Mr McDermott said. He said Tabcorp and Tattersalls own all Victorian poker machines and hotels and clubs are being forced to pressure their customers to gamble or face losing them. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea