In the mid 1990s, a Melbourne sex slave trader, Gary Glazner, posed for a photo at Southbank outside the newly opened Crown casino, flanked by a group of smiling Thai women. It was a short walk from the first brothel he had operated from, 39 Tope St, South Melbourne, and an opportunity to display the women and hand out complimentary vouchers, offering punters "a lady of your choice, free half hour".

Crown has been under the spotlight after a week of revelations. Credit:AFR

While free to the recipients, those half hours of sex were extremely costly to the women. By the time Glazner was eventually charged and sentenced, two gutsy Thai women had disclosed that he had held them as slaves. Glazner kept the women’s passports, housed them in a barred room and imposed so-called contracts requiring the women to have sex with 500 men without being paid. When one woman met a man she wanted to marry, Glazner told her she would have to pay $17,000 to break the contract.

As The Age’s recent explosive exposes have shown, this would not be the last time 39 Tope St was linked to Crown casino. The question now is, 20 years on, has sexual slavery moved from the periphery of Crown’s operations to the centre?

While allegations that Crown may be enabling organised crime and money laundering have understandably garnered great concern, the possible links to sexual slavery – and 39 Tope St, which has been subject to repeated slavery investigations – should also be of concern.