Australian casino operator Crown Resorts continues to provide fodder for its critics through the endless string of embarrassing revelations emerging from a New South Wales inquiry.

The NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority (ILGA) inquiry into Crown’s suitability to hold a state gaming license resumed this week, and quickly learned that Crown was effectively prevented from doing proper due diligence before its largest shareholder James Packer sealed a deal to sell 20% of Crown to his former joint venture business partner Lawrence Ho.

Ho, who controls Melco Resorts & Entertainment (MRE), is the son of Stanley Ho, the Macau casino icon who died this spring. A condition of Crown’s NSW gaming license was steering clear of Stanley, due to his alleged ties to Hong Kong triads. Australian media eventually uncovered evidence that Stanley held a stake in MRE’s parent company via a trust.  

On Monday, Crown director Michael Johnston told the inquiry that he had “no understanding” that Stanley was connected to MRE and had “no reason” to think otherwise. When ILGA commissioner Patricia Bergin pressed Johnston on whether he’d actually checked if that was true, Johnston conceded that “perhaps we should have looked more deeply.”