In New Zealand, local politicians have introduced new reforms that will change the way pokie grants are distributed. For the past few years, several pokie trusts and pub owners have been caught misappropriating funds, and local politicians want to cut back on these crimes.

“We have examples of conflicts of interest that are at the root of some of the current investigations that are going on so there’s many examples without specifically naming individual ones,” says Chris Tremain, Minister of Internal Affairs.

Many different types of pokie grant fraud have taken place over the years. Many clubs and trusts provide pokie funds to individuals that are not eligible for grants while other organizations withhold their funding altogether. The goal of the new reform will prevent this from happening by making the system more transparent. Since more information about these transactions will be made public, pub owners and trusts will be more reluctant to circumvent the system.

At the moment, few details have been revealed – but we do know that these reforms will be implemented along with the Harm Reduction Bill. As more details about the legislation are introduced, we will keep you updated.