The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association, founded in 1916 and commonly called the RSA, is one of the largest voluntary welfare organizations in New Zealand. A large part of its funding for welfare programmes comes from local clubs’ slot machines, and a government deadline of 18 March 2007 requires all the country’s pokies to be hooked up to an electronic monitoring system (EMS). The RSA maintains that the cost of installing and maintaining the system will wipe out profits and asset values.

Older machines cannot be upgraded and to comply with the law operations would have to replace them. It is estimated that there are over 21,000 pokies in New Zealand and the government has brought in new laws, including a smoking ban, with the aim of reducing adverse social impact. Following an international tender by the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs, Greek firm Intralot won the contract for the supply and operation of the integrated online VLT monitoring system.

Internal Affairs has admitted that some small clubs would have to cease gaming operations but says that parliament had decided not to omit such clubs from the need to comply so as not to reduce the regulatory benefits. Clubs have had since the law was passed in 2003 to plan for the EMS legislation deadline and some have already merged. The RSA has commented that its gaming operations have always been transparent and their members are having to pay for the actions of corrupt operators.
(E-06.12.06)

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