Intralot announced last month that it’s New Zealand subsidiary, Intralot NZ Ltd., has signed a contract extension with New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) through to 2025.
Intralot provides Electronic Monitoring Services (EMS) services for all of New Zealand’s Class 4 gambling venues.
As per the Gambling Act 2003, New Zealand’s government requires that all gaming machines are connected to Intralot’s EMS systems. This technology collects and reports information related to the use of gaming machines including the amount of money gambled, the amount required to be banked, the location and number of machines, gaming machine usage and machine faults and tampering.
The New Zealand DIA has worked with Intralot since 2007 and the latest three-year contract extension (2022 to 2025), is part of New Zealand’s continued efforts to efficiently monitor, audit and manage the country’s Class 4 gaming venues.
Interestingly, the announcement of Intralot’s continued partnership with New Zealand’s DIA comes at a time when the number of New Zealanders gambling is declining.
A recent study done by Nielson, in partnership with the New Zealand government’s Health Promotion Agency, reported that half of New Zealanders said that they had gambled less during the first few months of the country’s coronavirus lockdown.
The report found that of the New Zealanders that had gambled since the lockdown began, 9% had gambled more than usual, 41% had gambled about the same amount and 50% claimed to have played less.
While Intralot only provides information for gambling done at Class 4 venues like pubs and clubs, there was concern that the number of players playing online casino games would increase instead.
On the contrary, Nielsen discovered that only 12% of Kiwis said that they had played more online gambling games during the lockdown, with 33% saying the amount they played online was about the same, and 24% saying they played online games less.
Online gaming has been the fastest growing form of gambling in New Zealand in recent years, largely due to the wide range of online casinos available to Kiwis, but also because New Zealand’s gambling laws do not restrict Kiwis from playing online casino games with offshore operators.
Despite the decrease in the number of physical and online gambling players, experts expect to see gambling numbers return to normal levels as New Zealand’s lockdown restrictions continue to ease.
