‘Eight million sausages’: The law change that could ‘rip the heart out of’ Kiwi sport

Saturday, 2 August 2025

New Zealand’s 33 biggest sports codes have united to oppose a law change they say could double player subs, and threatens the future of grassroots sport, writes Steve Kilgallon

It’s the new law that sports bosses are warning could “rip the heart out of” community sport.

The leaders of the country’s 33 biggest sports - including rugby, league, football, cricket and netball - have united to oppose new gambling legislation, and they want their grassroots clubs to join the fight.

The Government is considering a bill to regulate online casinos, and licence up to 15 of them to operate in New Zealand - but unlike other licensed gambling, like Lotto, TAB and pokies, they don’t plan to make those operators return community funding grants.

Sport currently receives about $170m a year in pokie grants - and senior sports officials fear that once online casinos are legal and marketed, they will quickly and inevitably eat up that market share, meaning a huge cut in pokie grants and no replacement revenue stream.

Ex-NZ Cricket boss Martin Snedden is leading the opposition.

He told Stuff: “We can’t stand by and allow this to go through without the Government actually understanding what they are doing, and making a conscious decision as to whether they are prepared to proceed with something that will harm community sport.”

Capital Football chief executive Richard Reid said if pokie money disappeared, then club footballers could expect their annual fees - currently about $300 - to double.

Reid, who said he was “appalled” by the plans, has asked the 44 Wellington region football clubs he represents to make urgent submissions against the bill. “I think it is the most ill-thought-through piece of nonsense,” he said. “It’s incredibly naive to take it away without any apparent alternative stream of money.”

Reid said football took about $19m a year, mostly towards kit, equipment and paying affiliation fees (which covered field hire) and said: “So we have to sell eight million sausages next year.”

Bowls New Zealand chief executive Mark Cameron said: “This is going to rip the heart out of our communities. The volunteer sector is going to pay the price.

“What the Government is planning here is, effectively, to provide more opportunities for gambling, but then take away that revenue stream giving back to the community.”

Cameron said New Zealand’s 456 bowls clubs used pokie money for expensive infrastructure projects like building repairs and green replacements and sport was reliant on that money.

He said while pokie money had been gradually declining as gamblers shifted their spend online, the arrival of the new casinos would hugely accelerate that: “This will go at an alarming rate. It will be quick, it won’t be gradual.”

Reid said that, apart from rugby and cricket, New Zealand sport ran on a user-pays, bottom-up model - adding costs to regular players at a time when other costs were increasing and television and sponsorship revenues were decreasing. “For something with such huge implications, it defies belief that the sporting community has not been consulted…. All sports have got to get together and make sure their members make as many submissions as possible.”

Snedden, who chairs Cycling NZ and works for Cricket NZ, is the chair of a sports governance group of the 30 largest national sports organisations, and 20 regional sporting trusts. He said he had the support of them all: “There is widespread concern.”

He said sport understood the need for regulation and the principle behind the bill but he believed the Department of Internal Affairs had made no effort to understand the impact on the sporting community.

“It's a piece of legislation that is intended to do the right thing, but which has one glaring omission, and that is the failure to protect future community funding,” he said.

Snedden said the sector planned to table alternative proposals during the Select Committee consultation period, which runs to August 17.

He said he doubted the DIA hadn’t properly analysed the likely impact on sport - or warned the Government. “I think there’s a real risk that the Government is unaware of the risk to any significant extent … we want the Government to know this is a risk that they are walking into, perhaps with their eyes closed.”

He said community sport made “really good use” of the funding, which last year was roughly split around 50% to clubs, 42% to regional bodies, such as provincial rugby unions, and the rest to national sports organisations. “Clubs have to let the Government know how vital these funds are to them,” he said.

Mike Knell, chief executive of one of the biggest gaming trusts, New Zealand Community Trust (NZCT) said they gave about 75% of all their grants to sport - about $30m a year.

He said: “The elephant is already in the room. It needs controls but it needs a community dividend.”

He said one solution would be to give five of the 15 licences to New Zealand-based not-for-profit operators who would give away grants. NZCT are one of three trusts who last year combined to run an online site as a warm-up to applying for one of the licences.

Labour is likely to oppose the bill, and particularly this aspect, says their Internal Affairs spokeswoman, Lemauga Lydia Sosene, who said she was hearing “big concerns” from the community.

“Sports clubs around the country ought to be worried, because the minister has not outlined any alternatives,” she said. “That’s going to be a big question, because it will affect every sports club in the country who relies on community funding.

“You have to ask the question: Who is actually going to benefit here?” she said. “I know how important these grants are, and how they will be reduced under this bill.”

She said it was clear that the Government wanted to entice offshore companies at the expense of communities. She said there had been a lack of consultation and she was also worried about problem gambling provision, especially for younger gamblers. “The scales seem to be really unbalanced … this is a bad idea. The negatives far outweigh the positives.”

When the legislation was first proposed under the previous coalition government, the bill’s architect, NZ First MP Tracey Martin, had planned for community funding. The current Government’s draft did not include that.

Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden was unswayed. In a statement, she said it wasn’t yet known what impact online casinos would have on pokie grants. She said casinos would have to pay tax, Problem Gambling levies and fees to cover government costs, but she had been advised by the DIA that they shouldn’t have to make community returns because that would create “a perverse incentive to increase gambling activity in order to increase revenue for these organisations”.

In addition, if community returns are required on top of other fees and taxes, New Zealand would become one of the highest taxed jurisdictions for online gambling, making licences less valuable and attractive to operators.”

Van Velden said she encouraged sports organisations to make submissions to the Select Committee.