In the past few years, I testified as an expert witness in two major hearings where “best practices” had important and surprising roles.
The Bergin Inquiry reexamined the entire system of regulating casinos in New South Wales, Australia. Five years earlier, NSW had hired an outside firm to review and rewrite its casino regulations. It did so, based on the startling idea “best practices” requires “risk‑based regulation,” meaning basically casinos should self-regulate.
World Capital Ventures Cyprus Ltd. v. The Czech Republic was a hundred-million-dollar international arbitration brought by operators and suppliers of gaming devices after the national and local governments ordered half of all slot machines in the country removed. The industry expert testified that “best practices” means the minimum amount of regulation needed to create the maximum amount of gaming revenue. And, because “best practices” had not been put in place, he concluded that all government actions had to be reversed.
My major contribution to the Bergin Inquiry was that casinos were not adult Disneylands. The Bergin Report adopted all my conclusions, which were then adopted by Parliament, including creating the NSW Independent Casino Commission. The idea of casino self-regulation received a fatal blow when the Crown Resorts chair admitted its casinos laundered money, allegedly due to lack of oversight. Crown’s failure to carry out due diligence on high-rollers, some with ties to organized crime, resulted in a fine of $450 million.