SkyCity Entertainment has agreed to pay a NZ$4.16 million (AUD$3.8 million) penalty for breaches of New Zealand anti-money laundering laws, after last week coming to a similar agreement with the Australian financial crime regulator.

The New Zealand matter relates to historical non-compliance with the NZ Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism Act, with the parent company of Adelaide’s casino SkyCity Entertainment forging an agreement with the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs.

The civil pecuniary penalty remains subject to High Court of New Zealand approval, and SkyCity Entertainment also agreed to establish an anti-money laundering compliance programme.

On Friday, SkyCity said it had agreed to a $67 million fine for contravening Australian money laundering laws at its North Terrace casino following an inquiry by the federal financial crimes regulator. The fine remains subject to approval by the Federal Court which will assess the proposed penalty at a hearing on June 7.

That agreement followed an AUSTRAC-led investigation into alleged contraventions by SkyCity of anti-money laundering laws, including allegations the casino operator made $74 million from “high-risk” customers who had reported links to organised crime, and that some gamblers used “cash that appeared to have been buried”.

SkyCity executive chair Julian Cook today said the company was “subject to regulatory enforcement action in both Australia and New Zealand and those regulators are rightly holding SkyCity to account”.

“Over the past few years, considerable progress has been made towards upgrading our anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing systems. This does not lessen the seriousness with which we take these breaches and we are disappointed that SkyCity is in this position,” Cook said.

“As a casino operator, we play a key role in combatting money laundering and terrorism financing and we take that responsibility seriously.

“On behalf of the SkyCity board and management team, I accept and apologise for these long standing failings. We have fallen short of the standards we should hold ourselves to, alongside failing to meet the expectations of our regulators, customers, shareholders and the communities we are part of.”

SA independent MP Frank Pangallo said the fines were evidence of “wilful non-compliance” with casino regulations and that SkyCity should should lose its Adelaide licence.

“I’m calling on the Government to seriously look at stripping SkyCity of its licence, such was the misconduct,”  he said.

“We’ve had problems in every capital city with casinos, so that tells us that Australia has a real problem with gambling and regulating them, and international crime syndicates have been exploiting them.

“We should have a Royal Commission into gambling which also includes the casinos and sports gambling.”

SkyCity still faces an independent review of its suitability to hold the South Australian casino licence.

That inquiry began in 2022 but was put on hold due to the federal AUSTRAC inquiry.

Pangallo said the Malinauskus Government needed to state whether it planned to impose further penalties on SkyCity, following Consumer and Business Affairs Minister Andrea Michaels’ introduction of new laws to dramatically increase maximum fines from $100,000 to $75 million.

Michaels said the change would bring South Australia in line with penalties interstate.

“We don’t know whether the South Australian government is going to impose its own penalty on top of the one that SkyCity has agreed to pay as a result of the civil proceedings,” Pangallo said.

“I’m calling on the Premier and the Attorney General to show some transparency here.”

Pangallo said the latest New Zealand fine for SkyCity was just a “slap on the wrist”.

“It’s further proof that they don’t deserve the privilege of holding the casino licence,” he said.

“They’ve trashed that privilege. That’s gone. Let’s see if this Government has the guts to go further and strip them of their licence.”