Crown Resorts has announced a leadership reshuffle at its Perth casino, naming a former Western Australian treasurer as board chair-elect and its finance chief as the next chief executive. The announcement was made on Monday, according to a report by trade publication Casino.org.
Who is taking the top jobs
Ben Wyatt has been named chair-elect of the Crown Perth Board of Directors and will also serve as a director. Casino.org reports that Wyatt, a member of the Labor Party, sat in the Legislative Assembly for Victoria Park from 2006 to 2021. He was Western Australia's treasurer from March 2017 until March 2021, a role in which he was responsible for the state's financial management.
Wyatt will succeed John Van Der Wielen as chair, pending a board vote. According to the report, Van Der Wielen has agreed to remain on the board over the coming months to ensure a smooth transition.
Brian Pereira will become Crown Perth's next CEO, pending regulatory approvals. Casino.org says Pereira joined Crown in 2023 as chief financial officer of Crown Perth and has been interim CEO since David Tsai was promoted. Before Crown he was chief financial officer of Perth Airport, and his more than 30 years of experience includes WesTrac Caterpillar, Brookfield Rail (now Arc Infrastructure) and BankWest.
Tsai was named president and group chief operating officer of Crown Resorts last August and has since become group CEO following the exit of Ciaran Carruthers, the report says.
What the company said
Wyatt said in the announcement that Crown is "Western Australia's largest single-site employer" and a key part of the state's economy. Tsai said he was confident the two appointments, with their "deep local knowledge of the Western Australia tourism sector and economy", were the right people to lead the Perth team.
These are statements from the company and the appointees, not independent assessments. Casino.org's own reading is that Crown expects Wyatt to bring budgeting and cost-supervision expertise to the venue. The source does not say how the appointments were selected or what role regulators had in them, beyond Pereira's appointment being subject to regulatory approvals.
The regulatory backdrop
The appointments follow state inquiries in Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Casino.org describes those inquiries as having found that Crown regularly looked the other way on suspected money laundering and other criminal activity on its gaming floors. The source does not detail the inquiries' specific findings or any penalties.
The Western Australia Gaming and Wagering Commission has indicated that a finding on the casino's suitability is approaching, after years of the venue being governed with an independent monitor. Speaking to the Australian Financial Review, commission chair Gary Dreibergs confirmed the agency is reviewing the monitor's findings "relative to remediation" and is "considering appropriate recommendations relative to the suitability of the Perth Casino licensee."
Dreibergs said the findings and recommendations "will be delivered when appropriate."
No timeframe has been disclosed, and the source does not say what outcomes are possible.
What remains unknown
The source does not say whether the new appointments will influence the regulator's suitability finding, nor when Wyatt's board vote or Pereira's regulatory approvals will occur. It also does not disclose the terms of either appointment. Those details, and the commission's eventual decision, will determine how much the leadership changes matter for oversight of the venue.