Sport can still receive gaming society funding

  • Nathan Guy
  • Tariana Turia
Community and Voluntary Sector Internal Affairs

Gaming machine funding can still go to sport, says Minister of Internal Affairs Nathan Guy and Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector Tariana Turia.

Some smaller gaming machine societies have claimed they can no longer fund sport following a High Court decision that said the promotion of horse racing and, in some cases, amateur sport, were not charitable purposes.

"We would like to reassure the community that gaming machine societies can still give grant money to sport provided they are operating according to the law and their governing trust deeds," the Ministers said.

"While it is still up to societies to decide who to give money to, we are pleased to hear that many of them, including most of the large societies, have told the Department of Internal Affairs they are confident that their granting practices will remain the same." 

The Ministers said those gaming machine societies that existed to support ‘authorised purposes' under the Gambling Act (and did not restrict themselves to charitable purposes) could give money to sporting purposes as long as they were non-commercial and benefited the community, regardless of whether they were charitable.

And the gaming machine societies set up to support ‘charitable purposes' could still give money to sport as long as that sporting activity was being used to achieve a charitable purpose, for example, promoting health, fitness, education, or physical or social wellbeing through sport.

The Ministers said a planned review of the Charities Act was timely and would consider if it was necessary to clarify the circumstances in which ‘sports purposes' were 'charitable purposes'.