I like to watch the odd bit of sport on TV or the Internet. Absolutely nothing wrong with doing that or enjoying the wonderful contests that are so often played out for us.
Whether they be in football, tennis, rugby basketball etc, it is a glorious thing to behold and in recent years made all the more fun by being able to put a small wager on the outcome.
Over the last 15 years, a proliferation of accessible betting websites have blossomed and become accessible to those of us who enjoy the odd wager or two…. but hold on… not anymore.
It now seems that the present Government has done a dodgey deal, and used their legislative might to push it through. The deal is that this new amendment to a piece of legislation called the Racing Industry Act 2020, ensures that the sports betting markets that New Zealanders may choose to engage in are whittled down to … ONE…. option. That option happens to be the old New Zealand TAB, recently sold off to a British business called Entain, which proudly boasts as being one of the “World’s largest sports betting and gaming groups”.
Now if the NZ Government want to sell off the TAB to a foreign company, they can do whatever they choose, but it appears that part of the “sweetener” for this company to buy the old TAB is that the Government would make an amendment to legislation to exclude any other sports betting agencies from being accessible to kiwis.
Hold on…. isn’t this using legislation to protect a monopoly interest and their market share?
I thought a “business friendly Government”, as they call themselves, would welcome and promote freedom of choice and healthy business competition?
Not when it comes to sports betting apparently.
What is also astounding is that they don’t even dress this up as an attempt to curb gambling. If that was the case, why can I still access all the international sports betting websites and still go and lose money on their online casinos at pokies, cards and roulette (I have no interest in those by the way)?
They are getting away with this outrageous and corrupt action because very few Kiwis avail themselves of overseas sports betting websites (well not enough to represent a large number of people), however this is taking our country back to the most extreme form of protectionism and removal of freedom of choice that I can recall.
Don’t think that just because it is sports betting that no one really cares and we shouldn’t worry about it. What is to stop the Government passing legislation blocking New Zealanders from accessing Temu or Ali Express because Amazon made a lucrative investment in a distribution plant in Auckland, but part of the deal was that the Government had to legislate so that Kiwis could only access and purchase low cost goods from Amazon alone.
Nobody is saying anything about this clear infringement of our personal right to freedom of choice when it comes to how and where we may choose to spend our money. The internet has given us millions of options and here we have a protectionist regime, a bit like Albania of the 1950’s, deciding what is best for us (oh and probably getting a few nice “back handers” for their efforts).
