Sports and community groups are concerned over potentially damaging effects the Government's proposed Online Casino Gambling Bill will have.
The law would regulate online gambling operators, but at this stage excludes any requirement for community profit sharing.
North Wellington Football Club president Fraser Kirby joined Adam Cooper to share his concerns over the impact this will have on vital funding for grassroots sport and community groups.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Big plays, bold opinions of football. The Allsborn breakfasted with
Adam Cooper News Talks MB twenty eight past eight here
on the Ollsport Breakfast will a very interesting issue playing
out sort of grassroots and sports clubs and community groups
across New Zealand. It's all in relation to the new
regulations around online casino gambling. There's a new bill before
(00:22):
Parliament that sort of gets sets to regulate all the
online gambling that's being done. The issue and worry for
a lot of sports clubs and community organizations is there
is no requirement in this legislation for community profit sharing
as you know there is for the likes of pokey
machines and certain establishments. North Wellington Football Club here and
(00:44):
Wellington are one of the clubs around the country speaking
out about this. They say that Class four gaming grants
currently make up forty six percent of their revenue and
are worried about what this introduction of legal online casino
betting will do their revenue. North Wellington's football president is
Fraser Kirby, who's with us now. Morning to your Fraser,
(01:04):
and I'm sure this has been an issue discussed at
board level and around the club quite comprehensively lately.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, it has been something that's been been talked about
at a board room level for some time, and it's
probably the biggest headwind or concern that we've raised in
the last couple of years within our club, and it'll
be filed across all clubs, and yeah, look to be
able to have some opportunity to share some inside it
is fantastically appreciated because it does. It is something that
needs to be talked about on a national scale, and
(01:35):
there is drive from governing bodies to sort of raise
this as a concern across all clubs. Look for us specifically,
it is a huge issue if this gets past as
it's proposed to be, and it does cause some significant
challenges for RUSH moving forward, not just in respective actually
how we operate. It actually becomes a broader perspective question
(01:57):
around look, does this actually cause us to look at
are we still operational moving forward should it get past
as it is.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, And the information you've given us is that class
for gaming grants currently make up forty six percent of
your club's revenue. Is that do you believe a similar
kind of percentage across the board for say, football clubs
and Wellington.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah. Absolutely. We spend a lot of time understanding where
we sit and sort of benchmarking ourselves against other clubs
of a similar size, and that number is certainly not
an outlier. That's pretty consistent across all the sizeable clubs
in the Wellington region specifically.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
And Phraser As a result of this, I mean, pokeing
machines aren't going to suddenly disappear. So what's your estimations
into how much revenue could actually be lost here? I mean,
does gaming revenue go completely out the window or is
there still going to be some of it floating around?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, So what we understand is that with the online
opportunity for gambling there, there will be no funds that
will be guaranteed to come back into community sports or
community clubs. So what it's going to rely on as
people still going Pokeies, because Pokeys will still exist and
people will still go there. It's just if you were
mister and missus Jones and have the opportunity to walk
down to your local pub and jump on Pokey's or
(03:08):
do it online. There's going to be a movement towards
the online. So we see a significant revenue reduction in
respect of what we have access to through the physical pokeies.
What that number is, Look, it's it's an absolute guess
at that moment, but you know we're sort of looking
at a rough estimate of maybe sort of thirty to
fifty percent over the next couple of years.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Right, And we know this is at a time when
it's not just you know, clubs and sport doing it
tough and often struggling to make ends meet, but also
participants struggling to stump up the cash and the fees
to play given things that are pretty tough out there
at the moment, right.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Exactly, And that's that's part of the concern. At the
end of the day. While we're a football club, you know,
we're part of the community and we have people who
attend sport and maybe that's one of the only times
they leave the house during the week, what it might be,
and you know, it's actually there is a community at
a sphere around it. And if we're to end up
having to put pricing up to actually meet our costs
(04:06):
and it becomes a barrier to entry, there's a real
social impact here that that's out concerned. So, yeah, it's significant.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
By speaking about this publicly what are you sort of
hoping to achieve. What's the main message you are trying
to get across.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Initially, it's raised the awareness around it because the way
that it's words, it's actually there's no guarantee that any
of this money that the government received tax on comes
back into the community. And at the end of the day,
if all this funding does disappear, it's going to significantly
impact every single entity that is a incorporated society in
New Zealand that actually relies on government funding or sorry
(04:42):
funding from these gaming trusts to actually operate as clubs.
If those clubs don't exist, you know, where's the social
aspect of people's lives actually go to. So it needs
to be addressed in respective now these funds are actually
managed by the government and actually ensuring that some of
these funds do come back into local communities.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Have you had much joy in discussing this with MPs
or other people close to the industry yourselves.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yet not directly, and this is probably something in the
last sort of week we've kind of started to push
it to try and get a broader understanding or get
a bit of a reaction. I've had direct communication with
a couple of MP's locally just via email at this stage,
but haven't had any interaction at this moment in time,
but would certainly be open to it.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So you say forty six percent of your revenue is
from Class four gaming grants at the moment, where in
the club does that money go to? What sort of
important aspects of the club does that fund? Right now?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, Look at there's a huge amount of cost that
helps us cover. So it's from things like contractor costs,
affiliation fees to national government bodies, and at a regional level,
there's equipment cost costs, travel costs for tournaments, all the
things that are operational cost that we can apply for funding.
And you say it's about forty six the center of
(06:00):
our revenue is actually from those gaming trusts.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And I know you guys have done a little bit
of estimation as to you know, if you did lose
some of that revenue, what it would mean for club fees?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Can you just explain, I guess when you look at
it like that in black and white, what some of
the costings could be for juniors, seniors or all sorts
of members.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, we've just done on a broad scale. So at
the moment, our senior membership is about three to twenty
and the mass that we've done is that you know,
that would need to at least be six fifty seven
hundred as a number to make ends meet if we
were to lose a significant portion of these gaming trust funds.
So yeah, you know, that makes a un sustainable for
(06:39):
people to actually participate in support. From my perspective, we'd
lose a huge amount of the membership should we have
to turn up one day and say, by the way,
the fees are now double. It's a significant risk for everyone.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And at clubs, do you feel not just what'd say
within football, but across the sporting codes, are you guys
sort of all talking with each other and working together
about this to try and sort of I guess form
quite a not necessarily resistance, but making sure you're asking
the right questions.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, I'm not sure there's a connection between different sports,
but there certainly is a connection between the football entities,
and there's been a real drive from Capital Football to
kind of get this underway, and Richard Reid has been
quite vocal around this at Capital Football. I guess there
is an opportunity for clubs to actually connect in different
regions in vocalize and sort of have a joint resistance,
(07:26):
as you say, to the proposal that's in place here.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I guess some people listening Phraser might be sitting there thinking, well,
clubs shouldn't really have to rely on, you know, proceeds
from from gambling to function. Is that a fear comments
in your view? And could there ever be a way
down the track where clubs can be sustainable without without
these these funds coming in?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, and this is something that I don't have sleep
this nights of it, but I certainly spend a lot
of time thinking around. And you know, the question is
how can we be sustainable without these funds? And I
guess it reflects on the models and the way that
the actual sporting entities are actually structured, from New Zealand
football down to clubs. And it's not something that gets
fixed overnight or in the next two years, in my opinion,
(08:08):
and the whole thing has to be completely restructured for
that to be a viable conversation. Unless we completely look
at how we obtain revenue. There's no real way that
we can actually continue if these funds were the disappear overnight.
It would be a huge challenge. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
No, it's not just you guys either. Well, Fraser, thanks
so much for filling us it on that and keep
us updated with your progress and some of those discussions.
Fraser Kirby. They're the president of the North Wellington Football Club. Yeah,
I have a reads. There's plenty of coverage online about it,
the online casino gambling bill and the effect that that
could have for sports clubs and community groups across New
(08:44):
Zealand's for more from News Talks' b listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
Big plays, bold opinions of football. The Allsborn breakfasted with
Adam Cooper News Talks MB twenty eight past eight here
on the Ollsport Breakfast will a very interesting issue playing
out sort of grassroots and sports clubs and community groups
across New Zealand. It's all in relation to the new
regulations around online casino gambling. There's a new bill before
(00:22):
Parliament that sort of gets sets to regulate all the
online gambling that's being done. The issue and worry for
a lot of sports clubs and community organizations is there
is no requirement in this legislation for community profit sharing
as you know there is for the likes of pokey
machines and certain establishments. North Wellington Football Club here and
(00:44):
Wellington are one of the clubs around the country speaking
out about this. They say that Class four gaming grants
currently make up forty six percent of their revenue and
are worried about what this introduction of legal online casino
betting will do their revenue. North Wellington's football president is
Fraser Kirby, who's with us now. Morning to your Fraser,
(01:04):
and I'm sure this has been an issue discussed at
board level and around the club quite comprehensively lately.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, it has been something that's been been talked about
at a board room level for some time, and it's
probably the biggest headwind or concern that we've raised in
the last couple of years within our club, and it'll
be filed across all clubs, and yeah, look to be
able to have some opportunity to share some inside it
is fantastically appreciated because it does. It is something that
needs to be talked about on a national scale, and
(01:35):
there is drive from governing bodies to sort of raise
this as a concern across all clubs. Look for us specifically,
it is a huge issue if this gets past as
it's proposed to be, and it does cause some significant
challenges for RUSH moving forward, not just in respective actually
how we operate. It actually becomes a broader perspective question
(01:57):
around look, does this actually cause us to look at
are we still operational moving forward should it get past
as it is.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, And the information you've given us is that class
for gaming grants currently make up forty six percent of
your club's revenue. Is that do you believe a similar
kind of percentage across the board for say, football clubs
and Wellington.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah. Absolutely. We spend a lot of time understanding where
we sit and sort of benchmarking ourselves against other clubs
of a similar size, and that number is certainly not
an outlier. That's pretty consistent across all the sizeable clubs
in the Wellington region specifically.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
And Phraser As a result of this, I mean, pokeing
machines aren't going to suddenly disappear. So what's your estimations
into how much revenue could actually be lost here? I mean,
does gaming revenue go completely out the window or is
there still going to be some of it floating around?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, So what we understand is that with the online
opportunity for gambling there, there will be no funds that
will be guaranteed to come back into community sports or
community clubs. So what it's going to rely on as
people still going Pokeies, because Pokeys will still exist and
people will still go there. It's just if you were
mister and missus Jones and have the opportunity to walk
down to your local pub and jump on Pokey's or
(03:08):
do it online. There's going to be a movement towards
the online. So we see a significant revenue reduction in
respect of what we have access to through the physical pokeies.
What that number is, Look, it's it's an absolute guess
at that moment, but you know we're sort of looking
at a rough estimate of maybe sort of thirty to
fifty percent over the next couple of years.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Right, And we know this is at a time when
it's not just you know, clubs and sport doing it
tough and often struggling to make ends meet, but also
participants struggling to stump up the cash and the fees
to play given things that are pretty tough out there
at the moment, right.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Exactly, And that's that's part of the concern. At the
end of the day. While we're a football club, you know,
we're part of the community and we have people who
attend sport and maybe that's one of the only times
they leave the house during the week, what it might be,
and you know, it's actually there is a community at
a sphere around it. And if we're to end up
having to put pricing up to actually meet our costs
(04:06):
and it becomes a barrier to entry, there's a real
social impact here that that's out concerned. So, yeah, it's significant.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
By speaking about this publicly what are you sort of
hoping to achieve. What's the main message you are trying
to get across.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Initially, it's raised the awareness around it because the way
that it's words, it's actually there's no guarantee that any
of this money that the government received tax on comes
back into the community. And at the end of the day,
if all this funding does disappear, it's going to significantly
impact every single entity that is a incorporated society in
New Zealand that actually relies on government funding or sorry
(04:42):
funding from these gaming trusts to actually operate as clubs.
If those clubs don't exist, you know, where's the social
aspect of people's lives actually go to. So it needs
to be addressed in respective now these funds are actually
managed by the government and actually ensuring that some of
these funds do come back into local communities.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Have you had much joy in discussing this with MPs
or other people close to the industry yourselves.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yet not directly, and this is probably something in the
last sort of week we've kind of started to push
it to try and get a broader understanding or get
a bit of a reaction. I've had direct communication with
a couple of MP's locally just via email at this stage,
but haven't had any interaction at this moment in time,
but would certainly be open to it.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So you say forty six percent of your revenue is
from Class four gaming grants at the moment, where in
the club does that money go to? What sort of
important aspects of the club does that fund? Right now?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, Look at there's a huge amount of cost that
helps us cover. So it's from things like contractor costs,
affiliation fees to national government bodies, and at a regional level,
there's equipment cost costs, travel costs for tournaments, all the
things that are operational cost that we can apply for funding.
And you say it's about forty six the center of
(06:00):
our revenue is actually from those gaming trusts.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And I know you guys have done a little bit
of estimation as to you know, if you did lose
some of that revenue, what it would mean for club fees?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Can you just explain, I guess when you look at
it like that in black and white, what some of
the costings could be for juniors, seniors or all sorts
of members.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, we've just done on a broad scale. So at
the moment, our senior membership is about three to twenty
and the mass that we've done is that you know,
that would need to at least be six fifty seven
hundred as a number to make ends meet if we
were to lose a significant portion of these gaming trust funds.
So yeah, you know, that makes a un sustainable for
(06:39):
people to actually participate in support. From my perspective, we'd
lose a huge amount of the membership should we have
to turn up one day and say, by the way,
the fees are now double. It's a significant risk for everyone.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And at clubs, do you feel not just what'd say
within football, but across the sporting codes, are you guys
sort of all talking with each other and working together
about this to try and sort of I guess form
quite a not necessarily resistance, but making sure you're asking
the right questions.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, I'm not sure there's a connection between different sports,
but there certainly is a connection between the football entities,
and there's been a real drive from Capital Football to
kind of get this underway, and Richard Reid has been
quite vocal around this at Capital Football. I guess there
is an opportunity for clubs to actually connect in different
regions in vocalize and sort of have a joint resistance,
(07:26):
as you say, to the proposal that's in place here.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I guess some people listening Phraser might be sitting there thinking, well,
clubs shouldn't really have to rely on, you know, proceeds
from from gambling to function. Is that a fear comments
in your view? And could there ever be a way
down the track where clubs can be sustainable without without
these these funds coming in?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, and this is something that I don't have sleep
this nights of it, but I certainly spend a lot
of time thinking around. And you know, the question is
how can we be sustainable without these funds? And I
guess it reflects on the models and the way that
the actual sporting entities are actually structured, from New Zealand
football down to clubs. And it's not something that gets
fixed overnight or in the next two years, in my opinion,
(08:08):
and the whole thing has to be completely restructured for
that to be a viable conversation. Unless we completely look
at how we obtain revenue. There's no real way that
we can actually continue if these funds were the disappear overnight.
It would be a huge challenge. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
No, it's not just you guys either. Well, Fraser, thanks
so much for filling us it on that and keep
us updated with your progress and some of those discussions.
Fraser Kirby. They're the president of the North Wellington Football Club. Yeah,
I have a reads. There's plenty of coverage online about it,
the online casino gambling bill and the effect that that
could have for sports clubs and community groups across New
(08:44):
Zealand's for more from News Talks' b listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
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