Interim chief executive Geoff Hogg said he wished he had been better informed about practices that led to people who had been excluded from casinos in other states being allowed to gamble at the Gold Coast venue.

Counsel assisting the Gotterson inquiry into Star Casino Jonathan Horton, QC, said there seemed to be a priority in the business to give preference to revenue over compliance and in the case of two of the examples raised in the inquiry “there was a litany of reasons why they should not have been in the Star Queensland casinos”.

The inquiry has heard of one gambler, referred to as Person Two, who had apparent links to the Italian Mafia and was banned from casinos in two states but continued to gamble on the Gold Coast for another seven years. Another, banned in NSW, referred to as Person One, was showered with gifts from the company, including a Rolex watch.

Hogg, who was the chief executive of Queensland operations from 2015, said there had been a financial benefit in allowing those people to continue to gamble but the failings were systemic and not those of an individual.

Horton told the inquiry that Person One gambled more than $10 million with Star over the course of several years, but Hogg said he wasn’t significant in the context of the company’s entire earnings.

However, there was advice to the company that Star did not have the right to exclude someone on the basis of a banning in another state.

Horton then asked him about the Sydney Morning Herald report linking a top 10 gambler on the Gold Coast to the Italian mafia.

“Didn’t you pick up the paper and say: Yikes! An outsider is saying this person, on any reasonable basis, was not the sort of person I want in the casino?”

Hogg said he believed the newspaper report did trigger some processes by the chief risk officer.

The company’s guidance on the issue of players banned interstate meant that more publicly available information was needed to ban the person in Queensland.

Horton asked: “What more did you need to know about Person One, who was banned interstate, to exclude him?”

Hogg said better decisions should have been made.

Inquiry chair Robert Gotterson interrupted to query why Star would need publicly available information over and above the information from a police commissioner in another state.

“Why would publicly available information become more informative than a police exclusion interstate? Public information falls well short of information from a Police Commissioner,” Gotterson said.

Hogg agreed and said if the decision was being made today it would have been a different one.

“Our policy should have been to exclude earlier,” Hogg said.

Another case involved a person who had been involved in “reprehensible behaviour” including abusing migrant workers was continued to gamble.

Hogg said on today’s standards within the company that person would be excluded from the casino.

Horton said in the five case studies there was a failure to have systems in place to ensure they came to Hogg’s attention.

“Yes,” Hogg agreed.