The true extent of gambling harm in South Waikato was revealed earlier this year with $8 million lost on pokies between 2020 and 2021. Photo: Supplied / Problem Gambling Foundation
The minister in charge of the online casino bill is looking again at the new legislation after huge opposition driven by a possible loss of community funding. The Online Casino Gambling Bill would introduce 15 licences for online casinos, require companies to provide a harm prevention strategy, ensure their users are at least 18 years old and adhere to advertising restrictions.
Onshore operators like Lotto, TAB and pokies are required to put a proportion of their proceeds back into the community, but the new bill had no similar provisions for the new online licence holders. Community and sports groups were worried the new casinos would drag customers away from New Zealand operations to online, leading to a loss in funds available for community grants. Now the Minister, Brook van Velden has said in a statement to Nine to Noon the advice she received was that people would not substitute physical gambling for online gambling, so community funding would not be affected. But she said, community groups have a very different view and it is important to get the balance right, so she will be writing to Cabinet seeking agreement to add community funding to the Online Casino Gambling Bill.
The former head of New Zealand Cricket, Martin Snedden, led a coalition of the country's 35 largest sporting codes to submit against the decision.
