“The CEO [Matt Bekier] has been there for a long time, and he’s probably getting towards the end of tenure anyway. [Chairman] John O’Neil is an interesting one, because he was spruiking how The Star was squeaky clean.

“But it’s day one... what’s going to come out on day three or five?”

Lennon Chang, a senior lecturer in criminology at Monash University specialising in the greater China region, said that although The Star’s scheme disguised gambling payments as hotel expenses, the intent of many customers would have been to immediately “cash out” their gambling credits into a local bank account.

That provided a channel to move large amounts of capital out of China to invest in Australian property or other assets, he said, avoiding China’s tight controls on how much money citizens can transfer out of the country.

“The money moved can be clean money – just from normal business – or dirty money from organised crime or even corruption,” Dr Chang said. “You open the door for criminals to move their money out for China.”

The inquiry heard on Friday that some Star customers transferred more than $20 million through the scheme.

The Star’s share price fell as much as 7 per cent on Friday as investors digested the evidence from the inquiry, before closing the session 3.6 per cent lower at $3.19.

The inquiry, conducted by Adam Bell, SC, will resume on Monday.