 Former New South Wales Premier Robert Askin is widely reputed to have been at the centre of an extensive network of organised crime and official corruption, and allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars each month in bribes from major Sydney underworld figures.Although official inquiries uncovered assets far in excess of what he could have reasonably earned through investments and stock trading, Askin always claimed that his wealth was because he was a shrewd gambler.Likewise, because on-track betting transactions could not be monitored as they could in the government-run betting agencies (e.g.