Wow! Talk about a contrast. On Wednesday, James Packer’s Crown Resorts was at its taciturn best issuing this brief ASX statement in response to independent MP Andrew Wilkie’s whistleblower stink bomb dropped in Federal Parliament.

Then, four days later, the Murdoch press delivers arguably its most Packer-heavy publication since Kerry Packer’s death in 2005 with more than 8000 words published in The Weekend Australian, all driven by an exclusive interview with the billionaire by its Victorian editor Damon Kitney.

It’s not clear whether camp Murdoch or Camp Packer paid for Kitney’s trip to Argentina to interview Packer at his Ellerstina polo ranch, but from a journalistic point of view it was certainly worth the effort.

If you can get behind the paywall, here are the five pieces which ran in The Weekend Australian.

Much of this is quite market sensitive, along with a follow-up Damon Kitney story in today’s paper downplaying Crown’s interest in the Japanese market.

But has anyone told the ASX? If Crown’s 60,000 shareholders look for an ASX announcement on all this, they draw a blank.

So, what is the take-out and what was revealed?

[Mayne: inside the pokies trial as judge takes a stroll down to the Crown gaming floor]

Firstly, it is clear that Packer has been battling his demons. Drinking, smoking, putting on weight, broken relationships and living a reclusive life in Argentina. What other Australian billionaire has gone two years without visiting their native country?

Crikey has heard from Crown insiders that Brett Ratner is to blame for much of it. He was the matchmaker with Mariah Carey but also mismanaged the RatPac investment and led Packer into his fast Hollywood lifestyle.

Even with his kids living in Los Angeles, Packer made it clear to Damon Kitney that he’s not going back to Hollywood. Packer’s key quotes about Ratner were as follows:

“I lost $100 million on RatPac. When the losses hit $100 million, I hit my stop loss.”

“It was a (serious) business with Steven Mnuchin, Warner Brothers, China Media Capital and Brett Ratner. I was trying to find something to do in LA, which is where my kids are, so that was part of it.”

“My disappointment … is there were three sides to the business: the Warner Brothers slate that we broke even on, the stuff we did in China that we broke even on, and the films [Ratner] picked that we lost money on. His job was to pick films and to help us raise further capital.”

“If I was going to deal with getting out of Macau, the last thing I needed was to be in RatPac, which was losing money. People going around saying I was doing this to party…Brett is a force of nature. Our relationship is OK. Let’s just say I did more for Brett than he did for me. But it was amicable with Brett in the end.”

All of this will make Thursday’s Crown AGM in Melbourne a very interesting gathering indeed.

As City of Melbourne pointed out in this report last week: “Crown Casino is the only casino in Victoria and is the 11th largest casino in the world. Its revenue is more than double that of the largest casino in Las Vegas.”

As Packer has been AWOL, in light of the Wilkie allegations, it will be a fair question at the AGM to inquire as to exactly who has been minding the shop? Long-term CEO Rowen Craigie was booted in February this year and Rob Rankin didn’t last long as chairman either.

Crown’s newish executive chairman John Alexander lives in Sydney and also busies himself sitting on the board of Seven West Media, which has been embroiled in governance snafus of late, particularly in relation to the Amber Harrison fiasco.

Alexander is the author of full page ads from Crown in the Murdoch press today defending the company’s record and old Packer supporter Graham Richardson launched this scathing attack on Andrew Wilkie in The Australian today. 

Packer made it clear to Damon Kitney that retaining personal control of Crown Resorts and delivering Crown Sydney are his two highest business priorities going forward.

Yet he also tries to imply that Crown’s stuff-ups in China and then the $3.1 billion fire sale of its Macau investment were nothing to do with him because he wasn’t sitting on the Crown board at the time.

As if Crown’s directors would exit Macau without the controlling shareholder’s blessing?

[Packer gambled and lost on China. Can Crown come out with a winning hand?]

With his personal and public company debt now back under control, the main issue for  Packer going forward is whether he wants to remain the titular leader of Australia’s enormous and controversial gambling industry and whether the Victorian Government is prepared to remain in a joint venture with him on the current terms.

Premier Daniel Andrews is currently embarking on his government’s first five-year review of the Crown licence. The Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) has enormous powers and could well choose to put  Packer through the ringer. They can certainly require interviews with all the senior players, plus demand documents from the likes of the Israeli police, which have been central to one of the many controversies involving Packer which has blown up since the last five-year review in 2012-13.

The Alliance for Gambling Reform made this submission to the review, which ultimately calls on the VCGLR to require Packer to reduce his stake from 48.5% to less than 20%.

There haven’t been many public submissions but Financial Counselling Australia went to the trouble of telling the harrowing story of one gambler’s horrendous experience at Crown, as was reproduced in The Age today.

This submission by the Victorian Inter-Church Gambling Taskforce also highlights the extraordinary lack of transparency about Crown’s management of patron harm as it collects $1.1 billion a year in gambling losses on its main floor.

It remains to be seen how far the VCGLR will push Crown, but it would make sense for some of their officers to come along on Thursday and listen to the AGM debate.

# Stephen Mayne is a Crown shareholder and part-time adviser to The Alliance for Gambling Reform and will be asking questions at the Crown AGM on Thursday.