Francesca Rudkin: Something good has to come out of gambling - The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

If you’re a footballer or have a young footballer in the family there’s a chance you received an email from New Zealand Football on Friday asking you to have your say on the new Online Casino Gambling (OCG) Bill.  

It’s not just New Zealand Football who are making their participants aware of how this bill could potentially impact them. 33 of our biggest sports codes have come together in an impressively coordinated effort to warn the Government about the massive impact this bill could have on community sport.

Basically - it will likely become more expensive for you or your kids to belong to a club if new online gambling outlets aren’t required to hand over a percentage of their revenue for local community good.  

For the last 50 years or so, we’ve balanced a trade off when it comes to gambling. It is legal, but a share of gambling revenues must go back to the community. Currently, $170 million every year is distributed by gaming trusts to community sport. We all know the trade off - some good comes out of something which is damaging for others.  

The global online casino market is experiencing unprecedented growth. In 2024, the market was valued at approximately US $19.7 billion, and it’s projected to reach $56.8 billion by 2033. New Zealanders can already access offshore gambling websites, but it is against the law to host these websites in New Zealand.  

So to get in on the action and clip the ticket along the way, the Government is proposing a framework for licensing and regulation of up to 15 online casino gambling operators in NZ, allowing revenue to be brought back into NZ, local oversight and consumer protections.  

Now, this may sound like a perfectly reasonable approach to you - but there is one thing missing. And that is the community contribution, or an alternative revenue stream for these community organisations. If online gambling grows as expected, less people will be spending their money on traditional gambling outlets. Less revenue means less grants, sport becomes more expensive and out of reach for much of the community, and grass root sports organisations which are already struggling… disappear.  

No amount of sausage sizzles is going to cover the declining funding.  

The argument that these new online casinos should not have to make community payments because it would be a perverse incentive to increase gambling activity to increase revenue to cover the contribution - is plain silly.  

I’m pretty sure increasing gambling activity is one of their main KPI’s, regardless of where the revenue goes. And if the Government is worried about New Zealand becoming one of the highest taxed jurisdictions for online gambling, then set aside some of the tax revenue to make up for the lost community funding.  

Why are we pandering to online gambling outfits? To do so makes what is already an uncomfortable trade-off just feel wonky.  

Club sport is part of Kiwi culture. It gets us off our devices and outdoors. It gets us moving, it keeps us connected and working together, and it teaches us to be humble. It inspires tenacity, persistence and determination. It allows us to dream and be ambitious and achieve great things.  

It makes us laugh and cry, celebrate and commiserate, and brings out the best and sometimes worst in us. Without it we will have lost something that’s core to our communities.  

What a ridiculous thing to put at risk.  

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