The money came from the Community Development Fund, which is administered by the Office of Responsible Gambling and financed through unclaimed poker machine jackpot prizes and unclaimed gaming machine tickets. Under the Gaming Machines Act 2001, the money can be spent "for such community benefits as the Secretary considers appropriate" – a discretion which is delegated to the Deputy Secretary within the Liquor, Gaming & Racing Division. Between 2014-2016, the fund was used to issue grants of $3.34 million to 52 projects, the majority of them local community projects such as new school facilities, as well as 30 separate grants to upgrade war memorials across regional NSW. The $850,000 grant issued in 2016 to the Chan movie stands out as the largest grant to a single project, accounting for a quarter of the total funding pool. A spokesman for Liquor and Gaming NSW defended said the government "undertook a thorough cost benefit analysis" and decided the film would deliver "significant short and long-term economic and tourism benefits, particularly from Asia".

"The project directly injected over $20 million into the NSW economy and employed over 1100 staff, crew, cast and extras in NSW between May and September 2016," the spokesman said. Greens MLC Justin Field described the grant as a "highly unusual use of the Community Development Fund" and questioned why the request for production finance was not considered through a formal application to Create NSW, the state government's arts funding body. "This fund is derived from unclaimed gambling winnings. It should be used for genuine community building projects or used to support victims of gambling harm," Mr Field said. The grant was not subject to an open application process. Instead, it was awarded to YouKu – a Chinese video streaming giant – after the company applied to the NSW government through a local production services company for financial assistance to shoot parts of the film in Sydney. Jackie Chan on the Bleeding Steel set at Moore Park in 2016. Credit:Nick Moir

The movie's dialogue was in Mandarin interspersed with English-language scenes, featuring performances by Australian actors Callan Mulvey, Kym Gyngell and Tess Haubrich. Bleeding Steel was thoroughly panned by critics, including the South China Morning Post which concluded it hit "a new low in terms of the nonsensical garbage [Chan] is willing to put his name to". The NSW racing industry has been another big beneficiary of the Community Development Fund. In July, the state government handed $500,000 to the Million Dollar Chase greyhound race series, two years after the Coalition's failed attempt to ban the sport in NSW. The Million Dollar Chase at Wentworth Park.