DIA have announced that they have published the 2024 Class 4 grants data. This covers all the grants made in the 2024 calendar year by pokies. You will no doubt have had a good look at what the data is telling you.
But if not, then lets have a look now. All this information can be found at Granted.govt.nz.
Below is a shot of the dashboard on the first page.
But if not, then lets have a look now. All this information can be found at Granted.govt.nz.
Below is a shot of the dashboard on the first page.
We have almost 9k organisations receiving these grants, with each organisation receiving an average of almost 3 grants per year from 33 separate grantmakers. This does seem quite low to me: you will recall from some previous work that some organisations are getting over sixty grants from a single grantmaker in one year.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see Netball feature so highly. This year that code got $9.6m: of course that’s amateur hour compared to rugby’s $27m.
So who received all this lovely money? Below is a table looking at the organisations that received over $1m in the 2024 calendar year, along with the percentage of the total pokie money they received from the top giving grantmaker. Some you will know, some you’ll have to google, and some I have complained about several years ago. So clearly nothing to see here.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see Netball feature so highly. This year that code got $9.6m: of course that’s amateur hour compared to rugby’s $27m.
So who received all this lovely money? Below is a table looking at the organisations that received over $1m in the 2024 calendar year, along with the percentage of the total pokie money they received from the top giving grantmaker. Some you will know, some you’ll have to google, and some I have complained about several years ago. So clearly nothing to see here.
I could look back in time to see how grants to those entities changed over the years: only thing is there is a wee health check on this. The 2024 data looks quite clean (bouquet) however the historical data isn’t (brickbat) so without doing that exercise its tricky to compare. For example, in 2023 Youthtown is spelt three different ways in the DIA system: those three total $5.3m.
You may be surprised that there are 33 grantmakers in this sector. Below is a wee chart looking at who they are, how much they have given away in the calendar years, and how many machines they have as at 31 December. The Yellow is tagged as I find it odd that One Foundation has increased their grants by about $20m in one year with fewer machines (I do have a query in with DIA as of the end of June 2025 but not sure if they will get back to me). The red are the pokies that no longer exist, and green is a new entity.
You may be surprised that there are 33 grantmakers in this sector. Below is a wee chart looking at who they are, how much they have given away in the calendar years, and how many machines they have as at 31 December. The Yellow is tagged as I find it odd that One Foundation has increased their grants by about $20m in one year with fewer machines (I do have a query in with DIA as of the end of June 2025 but not sure if they will get back to me). The red are the pokies that no longer exist, and green is a new entity.
If you are interested in the pokies that operate in your region, you can easily look at that through Granted. There is a tab called Pokie Grants by District where you can view who gives to what in your area.
I also have looked at productivity: the amount of grants produced per machine. Now, Problem Gambling Foundation may describe this differently, but my interest is around the grantmaking side of the business. The size of the circle relates to the amount granted (and apologies for the fuzzy words: only so much my free version of Power BI will do). You can see that One Foundation looks quite out of whack with the others: see above query. The most productive machines are managed by Blue Sky with each machine producing some $43,307 of grants, followed by ILT ($42,003) then closely followed by Rano ($41,851). ILT is an outlier: of course this is the Invercargill Licensing Trust. I suspect it has been able to manage its footprint within the area so historically not subject to the same competitive pressures. I confess ignorance as to the venue business model for pokies, but, given Blue Sky and Rano have been the subject of a few of my sector queries, I’d have a good look at why those specific venues have gone into business with these specific pokies. There are instances where venues do ask for a kick back from a charity receiving funding (illegal) or where a charity makes a rent payment to a venue. Sounds dodgy but can't be as there has been no action taken against those who have done it.
I also have looked at productivity: the amount of grants produced per machine. Now, Problem Gambling Foundation may describe this differently, but my interest is around the grantmaking side of the business. The size of the circle relates to the amount granted (and apologies for the fuzzy words: only so much my free version of Power BI will do). You can see that One Foundation looks quite out of whack with the others: see above query. The most productive machines are managed by Blue Sky with each machine producing some $43,307 of grants, followed by ILT ($42,003) then closely followed by Rano ($41,851). ILT is an outlier: of course this is the Invercargill Licensing Trust. I suspect it has been able to manage its footprint within the area so historically not subject to the same competitive pressures. I confess ignorance as to the venue business model for pokies, but, given Blue Sky and Rano have been the subject of a few of my sector queries, I’d have a good look at why those specific venues have gone into business with these specific pokies. There are instances where venues do ask for a kick back from a charity receiving funding (illegal) or where a charity makes a rent payment to a venue. Sounds dodgy but can't be as there has been no action taken against those who have done it.
I write about this stuff as believe that as need to understand where funding comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there. Pokies are low cost operators in terms of cost to serve, and are responsible for granting large sums of money to community groups. As a citizenry we allow both those supplying money and those asking for money to operate, and as a community we need to ensure we have oversight over the organisations they choose to fund. Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting, and if you want to dive into the data a bit more than happy to do so. Check out my website http://www.delfi.co.nz/
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