Last Bets ─ A True Story of Gambling, Morality and the Law

On a Sunday evening in July 2011, 40-year-old Anthony Dunning was pinned to the floor of Melbourne’s Crown casino by security staff. Four days later, he died in the intensive care unit of the Alfred Hospital. The incident was reported to the police by two friends who were with dunning on the night—not by Crown casino. Later that week, a spokesperson for the police said that even though Crown had no legal requirement to report such incidents, “they probably had a moral obligation” to do so. Crown casino said that its employees were just doing their job. Three months later, a young security guard was charged with manslaughter. Michaela McGuire follows the trial, trying to make sense of the gap between ethics and the law. She speaks to problem gamblers, psychologists, a casino priest, and David Walsh, Australia’s most notorious gambler. Last Bets is true crime writing at its best—disturbing, gripping, and unnerving—and is a must-read for gamblers, the gambling industry, law makers, and everyone who cares.

Michaela McGuire the author of Apply Within: Stories of Career Sabotage and A Story of Grief. She writes a weekly blog for the Monthly and cocurates and hosts the bestselling literary salon Women of Letters.