Connor ultimately recommended that no casino be established – although if one must be established, what he termed an “unobtrusive casino” would serve Victorians best. There was, his research showed, “modest demand” that could be met “by one ... low-profile casino”. Xavier Connor, who headed the inquiry into whether Victoria should have a casino, at his desk in 1982. Credit:Age archive Contrast that to the glittering granite and marble temple opened at Southbank 14 years later by Jeff Kennett and casino founding father Lloyd Williams, complete with gas fire towers that, in their early years, were rumoured to incinerate pigeons. Could any venue be less unobtrusive? Back in 1983, Connor warned the pressure that would be brought to bear by casino operators to open a venue would be near impossible to resist. “There is a constant wearing-down process, like water pressing against a dyke, ready to flood through any opening that occurs,” Connor wrote of the lobbying for Victoria's first casino.

When these forces succeeded, Connor foresaw, “something will have been brought into the community having the seed of malignancy within it. The awesome never-ending responsibility to prevent it spreading through the body politic will be bequeathed not just to this generation, but to future generations of Victorians who, I think, will not thank us for it.” “When I left in August 1990, we’d had them battering the door down for all those years,” Cain remembers. “Within three weeks of me going, they had not only battered the doors down, but they were in the lounge room pissing on the furniture.” Over the past two weeks, a series of reports in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald have slowly peeled back the layers of malignancy that appear, as Connor predicted, to have crept into the city’s casino by the Yarra. Crown Resorts, it was revealed, went into business with tour operators backed by Asia's most powerful organised crime syndicates to attract Chinese high rollers. It had special access to a fast-track visa application process for its big-spending gamblers. The casino had close ties to a brothel owner and money launderer who lured high rollers to Melbourne and provided them with money to gamble. Loading The response to these stories from Crown? To explain to the Australian Securities Exchange that it was “not aware of any information concerning it that has not been announced to the ASX which a reasonable person would expect to have a material effect on the price or value of Crown's shares".

Then, in an attempt to undermine the series of stories from this newspaper, the casino giant ran full-page ads in other papers - it attempted to run them in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, an offer declined by the owner of the mastheads, Nine - rather than ask tough questions of itself. Crown's high-powered board said the casino company was facing a “deceitful campaign” aimed at damaging its reputation. 'We can't control it' Cain compares the influence of the gaming in Australia to that of the gun industry in the United States. “The national and international aspect, all that’s happened in the last 30 years, is very disturbing – because we can’t control it. And it seems there is not a real desire to control it.” Victorian Gaming Minister Marlene Kairouz's response to The Age’s reports was somewhat different to Crown’s; she asked the state’s Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation to investigate “the allegations raised as a matter of priority and report back to me as soon as possible”. She also asked the commission to look at the arrangements whereby high rollers were brought to Melbourne by companies for Crown.

The Age this week asked Jeff Kennett, who as premier oversaw Crown’s construction, about the series of stories exposing concerns about Crown’s willingness to prevent money laundering. Kennett pointed out he had “inherited the casino from Joan Kirner” – true enough, as it was his Labor predecessor who announced the Victorian government's intention to establish a casino in 1990. But Kennett as premier embraced the vision with the sort of unabashed, crash-through-or-crash approach that was his trademark. Then premier Jeff Kennett (left) and casino boss Lloyd Williams at the cutting of the ribbon to officially open the Crown Casino in 1997. Credit:Jason South Subsequently, the casino – or more precisely questioning over whether the tendering process Crown won had been corrupt – was one of the dominant political issues of the Kennett era. Could regulations on Crown today be tougher? Kennett said it had “been so long since I’ve been involved” he did not know, although he argued scrutiny by the regulator his government set up was “well established” and thorough: “Their scrutiny was as modern as anywhere in the world.”

Asked if he regretted his decision to push through the casino, Kennett responded with characteristic defiance: “Regret it? How can I? I can’t change history.” To him the casino was of a piece with other large projects he oversaw. “I don’t have regrets about the [Melbourne] museum, I don’t have regrets about the convention centre and I don’t have regrets about the casino,” he said. Tim Costello (second from left) at a press conference outside Crown Casino in 2016 with Shonica Guy. Her case that the casino's "Dolphin Treasure" poker machines fed gambling addictions ultimately failed. Kennett’s bete noire in the early 1990s when it came to the casino was Baptist minister Tim Costello (brother of Peter Costello, chairman of Nine Entertainment Corporation, the owner of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald). This week he said that predictions to Kennett that Crown would become a place where money was laundered could hardly have been clearer. “Our argument was that they exist to launder money, and our argument was that it will do a lot of damage,” Costello said.

One planning expert who worked in the Victorian public service during the 1980s said that the casino had influenced the state beyond its financial and social impacts, transforming the development of the entire Southbank precinct and the face of today’s Melbourne. “In the early and middle 1980s the Labor government planned for Southbank to be one of the first redevelopment areas on the fringes of Melbourne,” said Michael Buxton, a long-time commentator on planning and previously an RMIT professor. Loading “It was intended to be this type of three-to-seven level, dense European style of housing,” he said, that would then link to a similar development in neighbouring Docklands. This vision was replaced by a totally contrary view of urban development - massive high-rise towers designed to impress.

“Crown was a critical component of this mega-project development on these brownfield sites,” said Buxton. “Instead of a new city that was going to be on a human scale, we’ve got ... some of the densest apartment development on the planet. The suburb was just thrown open to development opportunities that Crown symbolised.” A 'gold-plated' magnet If you look at each year’s state budget, it’s not hard to see one of the main beneficiaries of the opportunities Crown has created. This financial year, budget papers show Crown will pay $238 million in taxes to the state of Victoria. By 2022 the figure is projected to rise to $260 million. After Crown won the tender in 1993 to run the casino, almost every single aspect of the project changed; the size of the building was increased dramatically and the company that was to run the casino, Federal Hotels, was dumped. The builder also changed to Grocon. “Every element of the tender process was changed,” said journalist and anti-gambling campaigner Stephen Mayne, who worked for the Kennett government. Kerry Packer, Lloyd Williams and Jeff Kennett are depicted discussing the high-roller tax at Crown Casino. Credit:Ron Tandberg

Mayne said the casino’s true mastermind was Lloyd Williams, who “went after the high rollers far more aggressively than any other casino”. Williams’ association with Kennett led to allegations of cronyism around casino tendering processes. Then opposition leader John Brumby in 1994 told Parliament that Kennett’s promise to represent a “new spirit of Victoria” had translated into a “new spirit of special deals for mates, the new spirit of no rules, no proper processes, the new spirit of no accountability”. The casino opened in 1997 when Melbourne, leaving behind the recession that started in 1991, was also opening up the lanes and liquor laws that it today markets itself on. By the time Kennett cut the ribbon on the new casino, his “On The Move” persona had become synonymous with the massive development at Southbank. But the casino in particular became emblematic of his government’s lack of transparency. Mayne said Williams and Kennett worked together to “gold-plate” the casino. Williams in particular was strident about it being “the biggest and best in Australia to attract” high rollers, Mayne said. Williams was contacted for this article but did not return calls.

Mark Zirnsak, who is still part of the Victorian Inter-Church Gambling Taskforce, established in 1996, campaigned against the casino alongside Tim Costello. Zirnsak said the churches for whom he spoke had repeatedly expressed concerns about both the gambling addictions the industry would foster and that the casino would be a “magnet for organised crime”. But he said the casino under Kennett - and ever since - was an unstoppable force. “What Crown wants, Crown generally gets.” TIMELINE 1990 Joan Kirner announces initial plans for casino in Melbourne.

1992 Jeff Kennett elected premier.

1993 Crown selected as operator, with Kennett saying he believed "all Victorians will be terribly proud of this development as it grows and ultimately as it provides for our needs”.

1994 Crown begins paying its $1 a year rent for a prime Southbank site; meanwhile, a temporary casino opens in the World Trade Centre on the Yarra’s northern banks.

October The Age reveals the financial adviser to the government’s casino authority did not recommend Crown consortium to win the bid over the runner-up; Prime Minister Paul Keating describes the tender process as corrupt.