August 20, 2007

Skycity should repay stolen money

Today would be the ideal time for Skycity to refund the $700,000 stolen from a charity and gambled away in front of casino staff says the Problem Gambling Foundation

He says that an after tax net profit of $98.4 million gives the company plenty of scope to reimburse the owners of some of the stolen money it received from problem gamblers.

Earlier this year Skycity was criticised by the Department of Internal Affairs for allowing a customer to spend $700,000 he had stolen from an Auckland charity - but they have been allowed to keep the money.

"Casino operations are the perfect example of businesses externalising the costs and pocketing the profits," says CEO John Stansfield.

"Skycity has had a good year on the backs of problem gamblers, and the families and communities that are hurt by their behaviour.

"Taxpayers are picking up the cost of gambling related crime, family breakdown, bankruptcies and money laundering.

"Their workers are carrying the burden of cost cutting measures recently introduced.

"Clients are not being protected from the loan sharks and other criminals that base themselves in the casino.

"No matter how you try to spin it Aucklanders are paying a heavy price for the dividend Skycity shareholders are pocketing."

Mr Stansfield says that a company statement this morning saying they had a strong commitment to host responsibility and harm minimisation is unbelievably cheeky.

"Their surveillance system doesn't appear to work. The place is full of loan sharks. The proceeds of crime are regularly washed through their games and they make only token attempts to prevent gambling harm," he says.

"Casinos in this country are in the favoured position of being a licensed monopoly.

"They are repaying this privilege by stripping the heart out of the communities that support them."

Mr Stansfield does not believe that Skycity business model is sustainable.

"Its certainly not ethically sustainable and it is heavily dependant on income from pokies

"Pokies are known as the crack cocaine of the gambling world and eventually they will be forced to make them safer.

"Without the income from problem gamblers who use the pokies the gambling side of their operations would be in trouble."

ENDS