A working group has been appointed to investigate the growth in the number of New Zealanders engaging in offshore online racing and sports betting, Racing Minister Nathan Guy announced today.

Why? Because the govt’s losing revenue of course.

“The TAB is operated by the New Zealand Racing Board and has a national monopoly on all racing and sports betting. The Racing Board is required by law to distribute all profits from this betting back to the racing industry, which relies on these distributions to survive. National Sporting Organisations also receive a percentage of sports betting turnover,” says Mr Guy.

“When New Zealanders place their sports and racing bets with overseas betting operators online, they operate outside of our regulatory framework. This means that offshore organisations make money on New Zealand racing and sports without paying their fair share of tax, or making contributions back to the racing industry or sporting organisations that make the betting possible in the first place.

Well, that’s one side of the argument. If punters are betting on overseas events using overseas betting services, what’s it got to do with the NZ govt? Maybe betting services in NZ just better get on line and market themselves overseas as the others are doing.

“These New Zealanders are also operating outside the safety net of gambling harm mitigation that we have here,” says Mr Guy. “The racing industry contributes about $1.6 billion to New Zealand’s GDP, is a major source of employment supporting over 17,000 full time jobs across the country, and has a particularly strong presence in our regions,” says Mr Guy. “Given the global trend towards online betting, this issue will continue to grow and needs to be addressed now.”

Same old same old. Socialist cronyists asking govt to step in with regulations and taxes to prop up their industry.

The working group will commence this month and is due to report back with recommendations for the Minister later this year. The group will chaired by former Minister, Chris Tremain. Other members are: New Zealand Racing Board Chief Executive, John Allen; the Chair of Sport New Zealand, Sir Paul Collins; breeder, racehorse owner and the NZRB’s Thoroughbred representative, Greg McCarthy; and two Internal Affairs officials.

Well, that sounds like a group that is going to come to an objective conclusion doesn’t it readers? They’re obviously just working towards a taxation and regulatory regime that will tax overseas betting heavily or regulate it out of existence.