Canterbury gamble on pokies
Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:17
The Canterbury Rugby Football Union (CRFU) appear to be a significant beneficiary of slot machine, or pokie, gambling in New Zealand, after it was revealed that they received NZ$ 728, 000 from the Mainland Foundation. The foundation, which is the result of a merger of the Canterbury Foundation and Mainland Sport in 2006, paid NZ$ 2.3 million in grants between August 2006 and 31 July, 2007 of which Canterbury rugby got the lion's share. Other rugby interests received only $140,000 in the same time period. Around 20,000 of New Zealand's pokies are owned by charitable trusts like the foundation, who are required to distribute a minimum of 37.12 per cent of the GST-exclusive gross proceeds to the community. Bar and hotel owners receive a mere 16 per cent of all pokie income. The Mainland Foundation added at least eight pubs and hotels to their group of high-income venues in 2007, including two Wellington bars, the Sports Cafe and Shooters Bar, meaning that, ironically, Wellington gamblers are helping fund Canterbury rugby. Other prime venues - for which the charitable trusts compete fiercely - owned by the foundation include the Frankton Arms Tavern in Queenstown, the Woodend Hotel in North Canterbury, the Turf Hotel in Nelson and the Rose and Thistle in Papanui. New Zealanders gamble about NZ$ 900 million through pokie machines each year, and judging from the rate of funding in 2006, Canterbury will take in over NZ$ 1 million of that money. However the Problem Gambling Foundation (PGF) has slammed the funding system, describing it as unethical and unfair. David Coom, the PGF's South Island regional manager, said that the problem was that money gambled was often spent outside the area, resulting in a transfer of money from the poorer suburbs to wealthier groups. The CRFU purchased two of their own high pokie-turnover pubs in 2007 as strategic investments but has since sold one of the venues. However the Mainland Foundation continues to operate the machines in both venues. Meanwhile, New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs has announced its intention of tightening requirements when poker-machine venues change hands. Director of gambling compliance, Michael Hill, said the department was aware of increasing competition between societies for gambling-machine venues and had moved to ensure greater transparency when changes occurred. "What we have is venue A getting X amount under Society A. The venue changes to Society B and then that venue gets higher payments," Hill said. "We are concerned with what's made the significant difference to get the extra payment. The anecdotal information coming in from the sector is that some societies are paying an extra couple of thousand dollars a month." Hill also said that there was an additional concern about pub owners being offered inducements such as new TV sets to change societies. Mainland Foundation general manager Kerry Wood said his organisation's policy was to respond to media questions only through legal representatives. A spokesman for CRFU chief executive Hamish Riach said Riach did not want to comment because he was on holiday. Fairfax Media
