Currently, under 18s are legally allowed to buy Lotto tickets. That’s about to change, explains The Bulletin’s Stewart Sowman-Lund.

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Lotto sales to under 18s to be banned

I don’t know about you, but I had not quite clicked to the fact under 18s are allowed to purchase Lotto tickets in store. This week, 1News broke the news that the government was moving to change that, bringing the legal age for purchasing a Lotto ticket up to 18 – in line with the current age restrictions on Instant Kiwi services. The government intends to embed this “really simple” amendment within a proposed omnibus bill later this year. Retailers could be fined about $1,000 if caught selling Lotto tickets to under 18s.

Speaking to the proposed changes on Newstalk ZB earlier in the week, internal affairs minister Brooke van Velden said it was about making the rules consistent for retailers and the public. “TAB is already over 18 as well as pokies,” she said. Van Velden described the law change as “minor”, given that most teenagers weren’t purchasing Lotto tickets. “I know there are some retailers that don’t want to sell to children, but at the moment that’s a legal grey area.”

‘Really important’

The change did not come entirely out of the blue, even though it wasn’t publicly on the government’s agenda until now. In 2022, RNZ’s Guyon Espiner reported that the former Labour government was considering a law change after reports of children as young as nine purchasing Lotto tickets. “That is work that is completely on the table,” former internal affairs minister Jan Tinetti said. The Problem Gambling Foundation has been in support of a law change for some time. The foundation’s advocacy and public health director Andree Froude told Morning Report yesterday it was “gobsmacking” children have been allowed to legally purchase Lotto products, even if they were buying them for older people such as parents. “It does tend to normalise gambling and make it seem to them that there’s no risk associated with it and that it’s just a normal everyday thing to do,” he said. ”So this is really important and sends a signal that these are gambling products and that children should not be able to purchase them.”

Lotto has welcomed the move, reported 1News, saying it creates consistency for retailers. Van Velden said she expected the law change to be made without much push back.

The bigger picture

There are broader issues to explore around Lotto in New Zealand. Last year, The Spinoff’s editor Madeleine Chapman looked at public interest, via the media, in large Lotto jackpots, noting “three days of national news dominated by stories of people who either just got rich or have been rich for a very long time” while the country was in a cost of living crisis. “There’s an air of dystopia in the soaring interest in Lotto during times of economic struggle,” wrote Chapman.

In another report back in 2022, Guyon Espiner reported that nearly 70% of Lotto’s in-store sales were made in the poorest parts of the country. At the time, Lotto acknowledged the issue and said it would close some of its stores in “areas of high deprivation” by the end of the year. I couldn’t find evidence of this being followed through on, however it appears that the uptake of online Lotto sales has resulted in a number of retail counters shuttering by the end of 2024 anyway, reported the Herald.

Where the money goes

Then there’s the community funding angle. As noted by Espiner during an interview on The Detail, the existence of Lotto – a Crown entity – also means the continued existence of community organisations that rely on the funding it generates. A special Lotto draw in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle raised close to $12m for impacted communities, as one stark example. This isn’t just limited to Lotto. I recommend delving back into this report by The Spinoff’s Shanti Mathias from last year looking at pokies in Aotearoa.

As Mathias observed, this form of gambling also helps support local communities, while raking in substantial profits. “Not far away from the shimmering screens of the machines are dozens of community projects funded by their profits, stamped with the logos of the charities that distribute that money. In Porirua, that money goes to the council’s annual Matariki celebration, events celebrating local businesses and sports awards; around the rest of the country, sports teams, community centres, disability support and much more are funded by gambling.”

As Mathias reported, Porirua’s 156 pokie machines made more than $23,000 each in the first three months of 2024. And even as the number of machines decreases, profits have risen.