The Star Entertainment Group has offered $100 million for a convention centre expansion in order to fend off a rival casino being explored by the Queensland government.

The State Government launched a global call for registrations of interest in developing a second casino earlier this year.

Gold Coast Tourism chief Annaliese Battista has already said the lack of convention centre expansion is causing them to miss out on millions of dollars from conferences each year.

The Star Entertainment Group CEO Matt Bekier tells Ross Greenwood it was a necessary step.

“It’s a lot of money, but what we’ve been hearing from our shareholders is, for seven years there’s been talk about a potential second casino and we would like to make investments in our property but we can’t really do that if we don’t know what the environment looks like.”

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