James Packer and His Casino Fortune

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Today it’s hard to find a single person in Australia who doesn’t know James Packer. James Packer has been on the Forbes list and is #9 in Australia’s 50 Richest, as of last year. His net worth is estimated at $2,8 billion. At the same time, his primary source of wealth is the casino business, and so that’s why we’re interested in his career path and have decided to share some information with you.

Early Years

James Packer was born in 1967 in Australia, Sydney, and is a son of media mogul Kerry Packer and philanthropist Roslyn Parker. He was educated at a school in Sydney and obtained the Higher School Certificate. After that, he started to work as a jackeroo, a kind of Australian cowboy, at his father’s cattle station. He didn’t go to university as he “didn’t have the marks,” according to James himself.

In the year 2000, he invested in Internet companies, such as Carsales.com and SEEK, buying the companies’ stakes and selling them later for ten times as much as he invested. Packer sold Channel Nine in 2006. One of his companies, One.Tel, collapsed in May 2001.

Wealth

James Packer’s first appearance on any wealth list was in 2006, after the death of his father, as well as the transfer of his wealth to his son. His net wealth was estimated at A$7.25 billion. In 2007 he lost about A$1 billion, due to falling profits and poor investment decisions. In 2008 he was listed third in the list of richest Australians. This was the first time in two decades there wasn’t a member of the Packer family on top of the list. His wealth oscillated between $3 billion and $7 billion; while it was reported that he owned superyachts, luxury cruise ships, private jets, helicopters, and a variety of cars.

Family Life

James Packer was married several times and had three children with model and singer Erica Baxter. He was engaged to the actress Kate Fischer; then after five years together and an engagement, they separated. Another engagement with Mariah Carey, an American singer, was broken by Packer, and so he had to pay a settlement to her. As of 2019, James Packer was dating Kylie Lin.

Crown Resorts and Gambling Business

This man is the largest shareholder of the gambling empire Crown Resorts, which owns casinos in both Australia and London. Packer took over the business of his late father, Kerry Packer. After his father’s death, James moved away from the media business, which was traditional for his family. He concentrated on creating an international gambling empire called Crown Resorts; this is one of Australia’s most prominent resort and gambling groups nowadays. It has investments and businesses in the integrated casino and resorts sectors, both in Australia and Macau; while it also operates and wholly owns the Crown Aspinall’s high-end London casino. As of October 2017, the company’s capitalization was over $8 billion. Crown Perth and Crown Melbourne, two Australian resorts, feature between them 3.000 hotel rooms, gambling areas, villas, spas, resort pools, retail and restaurants, live entertainment venues, and convention centers.

More than one-third of the revenue is generated by international visitors, mostly coming from Asia. The total yearly visits make up over 31 million in total. The company made over $4 billion of investments in a span of 10 years, mostly to upgrade and establish new attractions in Australia; including A$2 billion for the development of Crown Sydney Hotel Resort, which is going to be opened later this year.

In 2018, James Packer resigned as the executive chairman of his company, Crown Resorts, reportedly because of mental health issues. He suffered depression following his divorce and financial losses.

As we can learn from James Packer’s story, everyone has their high times and low times. So we have to learn from our experiences and keep on striving!