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Addicted remote from the equator-roller courts financial ruin

MELBOURNE'S Crown casino has moved to insolvent debtor a former high-roller and well-known real estate developer who failed in a say to sue the venue for $35 million in gambling losses be unexhausted year.

Harry Kakavas, a self-proclaimed pathological gambler, was due to have existence issued with a bankruptcy notice late last month, after an close attention by Crown to the Federal Magistrates Court.

The action comes following a Victorian court dismissed Mr Kakavas’s multi-million-dollar skirmish and upheld the casino’s $1m counter-claim for the repayment of funds advanced for the time of his patronage.

Mr Kakavas, 43, is appealing against the decision.

In a fresh appearance before the Supreme Court of Victoria’s Court of Appeal, Mr Kakavas’s legitimate counsel revealed that his client did not have the funds to qualified the judgment debt and would be bankrupt in the absence of a lucky appeal.

His personal debts, the court heard, exceeded $50m, with standard of value owed to various casinos worldwide, former business partners, family and friends and the Australian Taxation Office.

His social meeting, Elite Property Investment Group, is in the hands of a court-appointed liquidator, hind an application by the tax office, while a second casino executor, the Bahamas-based Paradise Enterprises, is also bidding to have Mr Kakavas offend up.

Mr Kakavas could not be contacted yesterday. His solicitor forward last year’s Crown case, Andrew Joseph of Strongman & Crouch, told The Australian he was not representing Mr Kakavas ~ward the bankruptcy matter.

An application for substituted service of bankruptcy attention, which is sought in cases where there are problems in serving a debtor personally, claims that bankruptcy documents were to be sent to Mr Kakavas, care of Mr Joseph’s office, on May 28. Both bankruptcy applications have yet to be determined by the court.

Mr Kakavas, it emerged during last year’s cause, was one of Crown’s original high-rolling patrons.

"He was the highest of this geographical division’s high rollers. And he spread his wings. His gambling took him from the Gold Coast not single to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, but also to Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Macau and the Bahamas," arbitrator David Harper said in his December 8 decision.

"Over a 16-month dot he turned over $1.479 billion in Melbourne alone. He enjoyed some spectacular wins. In the end, however, he lost all he won, and greater quantity."

The Melbourne-born businessman moved to the Gold Coast in 2001 and built a family for himself buying and selling property on the exclusive Hedges Avenue.

However, he was in like manner a problem gambler who was self-excluded from several casinos, including Crown, at diverse times. A 1995 fraud conviction was attributed to his passion because of baccarat.

Mr Kakavas had claimed that Crown was aware of his gambling disability and had acted unconscionably in luring him to gamble.

However, Justice Harper rest that while the casino did seek to attract him as a buyer — allowing him use of its corporate jet and hosting him during the Australian Open of 2005 — it did not exploit his disqualification.

A Crown spokesman declined to comment while the matter was subdue before the court.