The Salvation Army is opposed to the Government changing gambling laws in return for casino giant Sky City funding a national convention centre in Auckland.

Newly-appointed Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce is going to sign off legislative changes that will enable Sky City to install extra pokie machines and gambling tables.

Captain Gerry Walker, head of Salvation Army Addiction Services, says the number of people seeking help with gambling addiction has increased over the past two years. He thinks there are already too many pokie machines. “There’s more than enough around there, so that is a concern for agencies like the Salvation Army,” he said.

The Salvation Army says pokie machines have a higher concentration in low-income areas, profiting off the backs of the country’s most vulnerable people. In poorer areas, the ratio of pokies to people is one to 75, compared with one to 465 in wealthy communities.

The new deal would see more than 100 new machines at Sky City, in addition to the current 1600 machines they operate.

Mr Walker is concerned the proposed deal sends the message that “Government can be bought”. “That should be of major concern to New Zealanders,” he says.

Labour’s Auckland Issues spokesperson Phil Twyford has dubbed the approach “cheque book legislation”.

He says New Zealand already has serious gambling addiction problems and believes this would only make a big problem worse.

“Most Kiwis will find it repugnant that the Government should put the commercial interests of a multi-national corporation ahead of the best interests of New Zealanders.”

Mr Twyford says it is good news that Auckland is likely to get a new international convention centre. “But it isn’t good news if the Government is going to sign off legislative changes that will enable Sky City to install a whole heap of extra pokie machines and gambling tables, or to promote them more widely,” he adds.

The communications manager for Problem Gambling Foundation of NZ, Andree Froude, says 80 per cent of problem gamblers play the pokies. She says one in every five pokie machine players has a problem with them. “They are really dangerous machines”.

The Salvation Army no longer accepts grants sourced from gambling after evidence of the social damage began to mount-up.

In 2008, it decided to turn its back on grants derived from gambling that helped finance its community work following an increase in people seeking emergency aid as a result of family members’ gambling.

By Aaron Ironside