MEDIA STATEMENT

Wednesday 18 April 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

www.ipredict.co.nz

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Deeply unpopular SKYCITY deal may involve 425 new pokies

The New Zealand Government and SKYCITY may announce a deal as soon as next week which could involve 425 new pokie machines at the company’s Auckland casino despite being likely to be opposed by an estimated 77% of New Zealanders in a poll rumoured to be underway by leading New Zealand TV news service, 3News.

That’s what very early trading on New Zealand’s online predictions market, iPredict, suggests, after contracts on the controversy were launched today at https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=browse&cat=690. The initial numbers are likely to change through the afternoon and overnight as trading volumes increase.

The contracts can be traded by any of iPredict’s 6,500 registered traders plus anyone else who signs up for free at https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=register.

The contracts’ launch comes on the day New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said that he approached SKYCITY proposing the deal to allow it more pokie machines in return for building a multimillion-dollar convention centre in Auckland and that the company did not approach him. Previously it had been thought that the proposal was a SKYCITY initiative after reports that the company had sought and failed to achieve a similar deal with the Government of South Australia. Mr Key announced negotiations for such a deal in June last year.

The proposal is contentious in New Zealand both because of fears of problem gambling and because while other New Zealander providers of pokie machines are required to give approximately 37% of their takings to the government’s New Zealand Lotteries Commission to be given to charity, SKYCITY pays just 2.5% of its net profit to the private Sky City Auckland Charitable Trust.

iPredict is owned by Victoria University of Wellington.

ENDS

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