When he sealed the deal to buy Western Australia's only casino in 2004, Australian billionaire James Packer saw it as a lucrative jewel in his plans for a global Crown casino empire.
Fast forward to Friday, where he will appear in the virtual witness stand of the Perth Casino Royal Commission, and the future of Crown Perth — and his Crown empire, of which he is the major shareholder — is on shaky ground.
His reputation is in tatters, with high-level inquiries into his casinos in other Australian states finding him unsuitable to be involved in casinos and recommending his shareholding be dramatically reduced.
He is scheduled to give evidence to the Perth royal commission via videolink at the sprightly time of 6:30am, suggesting a time zone a long way from Perth.
Royal commission staff are tight-lipped about exactly where he will beam in from.
Mr Packer gave evidence to the Bergin inquiry in New South Wales last year from his superyacht, moored somewhere off the coast of Tahiti.
Money laundering and criminal activity
The WA royal commission has previously heard Crown Perth failed to act on money laundering, problem gambling, potential criminal activity and has potentially underpaid the tax it owes the WA government.
It is now turning its attention to whether associates of Crown Perth are suitable people to be involved with a casino and whether enough has been done to fix the company's problems and allow it to hold a casino licence.
Just this week, the report of the Victorian royal commission into Crown's Melbourne casino found Mr Packer had an "ubiquitous and powerful influence".
It recommended that no shareholder own more than five per cent of the casino operator, suggesting the Victorian Government give Mr Packer until 2024 to sell down his 37 per cent stake in Crown Resorts via his private investment company CPH.
"Without (the limit), it is possible that an undesirable person could take control of the casino operations or, at a minimum, be in a position to influence the operations of a casino," it said.
The Bergin inquiry explored in great detail the relationship between Crown Resorts and CPH, finding Mr Packer unsuitable to be involved with a casino.
"...it is obvious that the real power was exercised by Mr Packer both by reason of his personality and also the somewhat supine attitude adopted by Crown's operatives," the Bergin report said.
Board members abandon ship
Since the release of the Bergin report, all of CPH's nominees on the Crown Resorts board, including prominent Perth businessman John Poynton, have left.
Mr Packer's influence over Crown has also hovered over the Perth royal commission.
He chaired the Burswood Limited board, which oversees the Perth casino, from 2004 to 2016.
He also appointed many of its directors, including Mr Poynton, key Packer lieutenant John Alexander and Multiplex heir and friend Tim Roberts.
The royal commission in July heard of an agreement, instigated by Mr Packer, for Mr Poynton to act as a non-executive director of CRL to represent CPH, and provide business services as requested by CPH. Mr Poynton told the commission the legal purpose of the agreement was to ensure that he was not considered an 'independent' director of Crown.
Under the agreement, struck between Mr Poynton's private company Mulloway Pty Ltd and CPH around May 2018, Mr Poynton was paid $50,000 a year for Mr Poynton to be a nominee on the CRL board.
Among the terms of the agreement, a clause required each of Mr Poynton and Mulloway to deliver to CPH upon demand "confidential information" in their possession, power or control. The agreement defined such "confidential information" as to include confidential information of the Crown Resorts Ltd group.
When asked why he had agreed to that clause, Mr Poynton said: "I'm not sure in hindsight".
He agreed with counsel assisting the royal commission that the existence of the clause created a potential conflict between the duties of confidentiality he owed in respect of Crown Resorts board discussions, discussions of the Burswood Ltd board (of which he was the chairman) and his obligations under the clause. He said he was pretty sure that he had spoken with Crown Resorts general counsel and company secretary Mary Manos about the clause.
Subsequently, Mr Poynton was questioned by his lawyer Peter Ward about whether he previously understood this agreement involved confidential Crown Resorts information.
"No, which obviously is an oversight of my part," Mr Poynton told the royal commission.
"I guess what I would say in operation, and this again came out in Bergin, there wasn't any evidence because there was none to see about any sharing of confidential information."
Mr Poynton said that other than being a nominee director on the board of Crown, he did not provide any services to CPH under the consultancy agreement.
Mr Poynton gave evidence that he never revealed any material to Mr Packer, who he had recently replaced on the Crown Resorts board. He also gave evidence that Mr Packer had never made any demand of him for confidential information of the Crown Group, including Crown Resorts.
'Unusual' board culture
In August, just before she vacated the chair of the Crown Resorts board, Helen Coonan told the Perth royal commission the culture of what she called "old Crown" was "very unusual", partly because management was "beholden" to Mr Packer and CPH.
Even after Mr Packer stepped down from the board, Ms Coonan described a situation of "asymmetrical information", where some directors received information and others did not.
"When the major shareholder stepped back from having that sort of involvement, I think management still, in many respects, thought they were reporting to the major shareholder," she said.
"I think that affected the way in which people carried out their functions."
Mr Packer's father Kerry was at the helm of Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd when it bought the Perth casino in 2004.
But according to a biography of James Packer by Damon Kitney, the deal was driven by his son, who unlike his father was not a gambler.
"The target was the Perth casino's high-roller income," Kitney wrote.
"By organising package deals with Melbourne's Crown Casino, a combined Crown-Burswood could attract a steady flow of punters from Asia."
According to Kitney's book, Mr Packer has a close relationship with Perth billionaire Kerry Stokes, who intervened to stop Mr Packer's wedding to singer Mariah Carey.
The chief executive of the WA operations of Mr Stokes' SevenWest Media, Maryna Fewster, also sits on the board of Burswood Ltd, which oversees Crown Perth.
Editor’s Note: This article has been amended to provide additional context and detail about the evidence given to the Perth Casino Royal Commission by Perth businessman John Poynton.