Monday, October 14, 2024

A plan for how New Zealand can control the online casino trend, protect players and get more money for the country’s welfare!

The trend among casino players in New Zealand seems to be easy to understand. Gambling is decreasing on gaming machines around the country, while online gambling is increasing.

We took a closer look at the statistics going back in time and the statistics we believe in the future. What you could quickly notice was that slot machines in New Zealand were a growing trend until 2003, when a new gaming regulation was introduced (The gambling Act 2003) that would reduce gambling and minimize problem gambling. But if we also look at statistics for online casinos at Statista, we also see that online gambling has increased year after year and that it is predicted that it has not yet reached its peak, i.e. it will continue to increase.

We looked at these statistics:

According to Dia.govt.nz, the number of gaming machines around the country continues to decrease.

Stats from https://www.dia.govt.nz/gambling-statistics-historical-data-machine-numbers

According to Statista, the online casino business in New Zealand is increasing by 7.97% per year.

Stats from https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/app/games/casino-games/new-zealand

Even Google trends shows a clear and distinct increase for terms like “casino” in New Zealand in the last 5 years.

Stats from https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=NZ&q=casino&hl=en-US

Other things that I think also indicate that New Zealand’s online casino trend is growing is that both Skytcity casino and Christchurch casino have launched their own versions of their casino with an MGA license. At the same time, the other players have fallen behind, such as TAB, where we have previously seen a substantial drop in TAB`s revenue due to the fact that they cannot compete with the off-shore players.

These 3 things clearly show in my opinion that the online casino trend continues to increase. The fact that they have succeeded in reducing gambling in the country is quite good for reducing gambling problems and it is important to remember that the reduction in gambling in the country is not due to more people choosing to play online. But it is equally important to understand that the new type of player prefers to be able to play online at any time and that this trend is not diminishing regardless of how gaming in the country looks like.

The New Zealand government has already stated a while ago that it will introduce a new gambling regulation that regulates the online market, but nothing has been decided yet. So the question is how much can this trend grow before a new gambling regulation is introduced?

Because as fun as it is that our market is growing, we are also all well aware that gambling problems are also growing as the online casino trend grows, and how are Kiwis with gambling problems protected today? Exactly, they have no protection of the country!

A new gaming regulation that controls off-shore casinos in the country. We have seen other countries introduce similar licensing systems, such as Sweden and the UK with fairly good success. What we can learn from these markets that New Zealand should adopt and introduce indivisible is, among other things:

A separate licensing system so that all off-shore casinos that want to operate in the country must obtain a NZ casino license. To get it, as in other countries, you have to be very transparent and follow the rules and laws that the country requires, which would protect players enormously compared to now.
It would also be necessary to introduce an international self-exclusion filter, which Sweden did to offer players in the country with gambling problems a simple solution to pause or block themselves from all casino players.

In addition to this, a new licensing system would also control how the marketing for online casinos looks in the country and thus also guarantee that no misleading marketing may be used.

One would then also give the local players a chance to compete with off-shore casinos. This is also something that we have witnessed in other markets, for example Sweden where the state-owned Svenska Spel has launched its own online casinos that not only offer games in the country but also in other countries.

So with that said, it is also important to consider that a licensing system not only protects players but also contributes to the welfare of the country. With a license system, operators must pay taxes to the country, unlike today where they drain the country of money. The possibility of also being able to offer their products around the world would contribute to earning more money for the country.

 

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