New Zealand Looking to Exempt Lotteries from Online Gambling Ban

The government of New Zealand Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, has put forward legislation that would permanently exempt a range of licensed lotteries from the nation’s prohibition on online casinos. 

Home to almost 5.5 million people, New Zealand passed a measure in 2003 to outlaw all forms of 'remote interactive gambling’, which was defined as ‘gambling by a person at a distance by interaction through a communication device’. This ban covered all commercial lotteries except those organized and run by the state-owned TAB New Zealand and New Zealand Lotteries Commission organizations. 

Temporary Trial

However, this proscription was partially lifted in May of 2021 as the island nation struggled to come to terms with the many impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. The provisional reprieve allowed charitable organizations holding a Class 3 from the Department of Internal Affairs to begin offering a range of lottery and instant-win games online so long as the aggregated value of an individual session’s prize topped about $3,100. 

This amnesty, which is scheduled to expire at the end of next month, was introduced by the administration of then-Prime Minister Chris Hipkins so as to allow charitable organizations across New Zealand to continue raising funds even as the nation struggled through a series of local lockdowns. The move worked with the sector widely expected to this year chalk up some $312 million in aggregated online revenues.  

Alteration Application  

Buoyed by the success of the brief amnesty, Luxon’s government has now proposed adding an amendment to the New Zealand Gambling Act of 2003 in order to allow for the legal operation of a wider range of online lotteries beyond the looming October 31 deadline. The language of the suggested modification would permanently remove licensed Class 3 gambling operations from the prohibition on ‘remote interactive gambling’ and allow such activities to be legally conducted online.

As written, the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill intends to add a paragraph to the New Zealand Gambling Act of 2003 that would exempt ‘Class 3 gambling in the form of a lottery conducted by any gambling operator that holds a Class 3 operator’s licence that allows the gambling operator to conduct a lottery’ from the legal definition of ‘remote interactive gambling’. 

“The context in which Class 3 operators are conducting lotteries has changed since the enactment of the New Zealand Gambling Act of 2003,” read a statement from the New Zealand Parliamentary Counsel Office. 

“As advertising and financial transactions are now predominantly digital, the fundraising ability of Class 3 operators would be limited without advertising and digital transactions. The purpose of the New Zealand Gambling Act of 2003 includes ensuring that money from gambling benefits the community.” 

Required Route

The government of New Zealand is soon set to conclude its public consultations on the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill in hopes of getting the measure ratified no later than the first day of November. For this to happen, the proposal must first be ratified by the nation’s Governance and Administration Committee before being ratified by the 123-seat New Zealand House of Representatives.