Recently, the gambling market has seen its fair share of gambling scandals, as pokie operators and club owners violate the rules that regulate the industry. Now, New Zealand politicians are taking a stand against this type of injustice by introducing new reforms that aim to crack down on illegal pokie operations.
This week, Internal Affairs Minister Chris Tremain has introduced a wide range of reforms that will make pokie grants more transparent. The general public and local politicians will be made aware of how pokie funds are being spent, ensuring that clubs cannot provide pokie funds to groups and individuals that are not eligible for them. “It is a concern,” says Tremain.
"We have examples of conflicts of interest that are at the root of some of the current investigations that are going on so there's many examples without specifically naming individual ones.” Currently, more than 37% of pokie machine profits are supposed to go back into the community, providing local community organizations with the funds required to operate.
In many cases, pokie grants are provided to groups that are not eligible for funds while some pubs fail to distribute the funding at all. In fact, 30% of all gaming licenses are owned by management companies which are not registered at the moment. This will also be corrected when the new poker machine reforms are passed.
The new legislation aims to correct this problem, so that local community organizations can actually reap the benefits of poker machines. These reforms will come along with the provisions outlined by MP Te Ururoa Flavell's Gambling Harm Reduction bill. Overall, the New Zealand government is working hard to ensure that gambling does more good than harm throughout the community, and the new pokie grant reform is a positive step forward.
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