Recent royal commissions and inquiries into Crown and Star casino groups attracted much media attention. Most of this was focused on money laundering and other illegalities.

The Victorian royal commission found widespread evidence that Crown also took advantage of vulnerable people.

The regulatory framework that in large part allows this to occur is known as “responsible gambling”.

Read more: Whatever happens to Star, the age of unfettered gambling revenue for casinos may have ended

Gambling operators usually adhere to a system of purported harm minimisation known as responsible gambling.

In practice, this requires gambling operators to adopt and supposedly implement a “responsible gambling code of practice”.

This is supposed to protect people from experiencing gambling harm. Crown and Star, like other gambling venues, are required to adopt such codes.

Royal Commissioner Ray Finkelstein, overseeing the Victorian Crown inquiry, was scathing in his assessment of Crown’s implementation:

Crown Melbourne had for years held itself out as having a world’s best approach to problem gambling. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, Finkelstein’ comments about Crown could readily be made about most other gambling operators.

The responsible gambling framework was developed by gambling operators as a way of deflecting attention from the serious harm of gambling.

The document that

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