The Star Entertainment Group Reports FY26 Results as Soo Kim, Bruce Mathieson Jnr and H.C. Charles Diao Drive Turnaround
The Star Entertainment FY26 results, released to the ASX for the full year ended 30 June 2026, show a normalised EBITDA loss of $16.1 million, a sharp improvement on the $76.2 million loss recorded a year earlier. Group corporate costs were cut by $75 million, revenue at the operating properties stabilised in the final quarter after almost two years of decline, and the ASX-listed casino operator (SGR) refinanced its debt and held $267 million in cash at 30 June 2026. It was the first full-year result under new ownership and new leadership. And the company was candid that serious uncertainty remains.
Why the Star Entertainment FY26 Results Matter Now
This is the first full year reported since Bally’s Corporation and Investment Holdings completed a $300 million equity investment in November 2025, a deal that reshaped the Board and installed Bruce Mathieson Jnr as Group Chief Executive Officer from 16 December 2025. For almost two years before that, The Star had been one of the most scrutinised names in Australian gaming, weighed down by licence suitability findings, a pending regulatory penalty, and a genuine liquidity threat. So FY26 is the first real report card on whether the new team can steady the business. On the trading line, it can.
What the Star Entertainment Gaming Revenue Numbers Actually Show
The headline improvement is the loss narrowing. Normalised revenue came in at $1,101.0 million, only modestly below the prior year’s $1,125 million, but the cost story is where the turn is visible. The Star took $75 million out of FY26 group corporate costs, and annualised fourth-quarter corporate costs of $178 million sat $111 million, or 38%, below FY25.
Revenue at the operating properties stabilised in the fourth quarter after nearly two years of quarterly declines. July 2026 gave an early read on momentum: combined revenue for The Star Sydney and The Star Gold Coast reached $92.4 million, up 6% on the same month a year earlier and 8% above the Q4 FY26 monthly average. The Star Brisbane, meanwhile, marked its second anniversary, with the integrated resort’s EBITDAM before operator fee nearly doubling in its second year and a recent three-month run-rate averaging around $13 million a month, which the company described as all-time records.
The statutory picture is heavier. The Star reported a statutory net loss of $307.3 million, down from $428 million in FY25 but still substantial, with normalised loss after tax of $158.9 million before significant items of $144.3 million.
What The Star’s New Management Signals to the Australian Casino Market
Group CEO and Managing Director Bruce Mathieson Jnr said: “We have moved to a more accountable, property-led operating model and a renewed focus on performance, customers, and responsible operations.”
The signal there is a management team confident enough to frame FY26 as the beginning of a turnaround rather than a survival year. Group CFO and Interim Group CRO H. C. Charles Diao struck a similar note: “Through the completion of various financing and strategic transactions, along with critical operational improvements implemented by new leadership, The Star is materially improved in its financial position and risk posture. We see the clear progress that we are making in effecting the operational turnaround at The Star and are confident that we have begun the process of recovery towards the sustainable and profitable financial performance from a few years past.”
For rivals and the wider regulated gaming market, a stabilising Star changes the competitive picture in Australia. A distracted, cash-constrained major operator behaves very differently from one investing in marketing and rebuilding its patron experience, which is what the July revenue lift and the increased complimentary investment point to.
The Going-Concern Warning Behind The Star’s FY26 Numbers
Here is the part the numbers alone don’t settle. The Star itself states that material uncertainties remain that can cast significant doubt over the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern. It names the specific pressure points directly: the quantum and timing of the AUSTRAC penalty, the ability to hit FY27 revenue and cost-out targets sufficient to satisfy debt covenants, the return to suitability through restoration of The Star Sydney’s casino licence and withdrawal of the deferred suspension on The Star Gold Coast, and the maintenance of its transactional banking services.
None of that is speculation on our part. It is the company’s own disclosure, and at the date of the release there was no certainty each matter would be resolved satisfactorily and in time. Real progress. Real risk. Both are true at once.
What Comes Next for The Star Entertainment and the Regulated Gaming Market?
FY27 is the year the recovery is either proven or stalls. The Star expects to begin building cash in FY27 before non-operating items, and it is working towards the second stage of its JVP Transaction, which the parties currently expect to complete during the second half of CY2026 and no later than 31 March 2027. But the two decisions that matter most, the AUSTRAC penalty and the licence suitability outcomes, sit largely outside management’s control. The Star has done the fixable part. The market will now spend the next year watching whether the parts it can’t fix fall its way.
Source: The Star Entertainment Group
