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DIA have published the 2025 Class 4 grants data. This covers all the grants made in the 2025 calendar year by Class 4 societies: 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 9,420 organisations receiving these grants, with each organisation receiving an average of almost 2.75 grants per year from 33 separate grantmakers. HOWEVER looking at the data, unlike last year (but like years prior) the data isn’t clean. For some grantseekers we have multiple entries: I would suspect that the real number of organisations getting grants will be similar to last years 8.9k. If you are using Granted at the moment you may strike some challenges here: trick for young players.
So who got all this lovely money? Below is a table looking at the top twenty organisations receiving money, along with information on who the largest funder is for that particular grant seeking entity with the percentage that funder gives to the grant seeker. (Note: I’ve eyeballed the grant seekers to account for dirty data so my results may differ from the website). Some you will know, some aren’t actually legal entities so we have no idea what the spend is for, some you’ll have to google, and some I have complained about several years ago. So clearly nothing to see here.
So who got all this lovely money? Below is a table looking at the top twenty organisations receiving money, along with information on who the largest funder is for that particular grant seeking entity with the percentage that funder gives to the grant seeker. (Note: I’ve eyeballed the grant seekers to account for dirty data so my results may differ from the website). Some you will know, some aren’t actually legal entities so we have no idea what the spend is for, some you’ll have to google, and some I have complained about several years ago. So clearly nothing to see here.
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.
During the 2025 year we have lost one grant maker: Blue Waters Community Trust. Their single venue seems to have shut its doors. Looks like Auckland’s lawn bowls clubs will miss them the most: looking at the last five years of grants we can see 74% of their grants have gone to Bowls clubs. ILT's look strange: they have the same number of machines – which isn’t surprising given they are a licensing trust – but the amount of grants in the 2025 year has dropped by about $1.3m. Looking at their annual accounts for the ILT Foundation who runs the pokies (financial year end 31 March) I can see there is a $500k drop so suspect some of this being reporting is timing but the reduction is still puzzling.
You can see there is a column called 2025 Productivity. This is a measure of my own invention: it looks at the dollar grants given and divides by the number of machines it takes to produce that grant income. To some extent it’s a measure of network: how urban or well used the pokie venues are. Ignoring the smaller organisations whose results may well be skewed by timings, Trillian’s are most productive with each machine in their network producing $43k for community groups. Youthtown’s are the least productive, with each machine producing only $17k per machine. The average pokie machine produces a tidy $29k to community groups. If you are interested in this you can see the machine and venue data on DIA’s website – or get in touch as I capture this annually.
We can also see that the number of machines in NZ is down by just over 100. This is driven by 14 venues closing or getting rid of their pokies: we are down to 803 venues as at the end of 2025. Of course many councils have shrinking lid policies on pokie venues. The amount granted in 2025 compared to 2024 has dropped by about $5m: whether this is driven by reduced network, competition from online or by less disposable income by pokie players remains to be seen. I recall a few years ago I determined that a reduced network didn't make much difference to the amounts granted, but things have changed a little since then.
If you are interested in the pokies that operate in your region and the sorts of groups they fund you can easily look at that through Granted. Local Canterbury grant seekers may be interested to see that Rano has now left the region, with that site now a Youthtown one.
I write about this stuff as believe that as need to understand where funding comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there. These 33 (now 32) entities have considerable stewardship over community funding. 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/
You can see there is a column called 2025 Productivity. This is a measure of my own invention: it looks at the dollar grants given and divides by the number of machines it takes to produce that grant income. To some extent it’s a measure of network: how urban or well used the pokie venues are. Ignoring the smaller organisations whose results may well be skewed by timings, Trillian’s are most productive with each machine in their network producing $43k for community groups. Youthtown’s are the least productive, with each machine producing only $17k per machine. The average pokie machine produces a tidy $29k to community groups. If you are interested in this you can see the machine and venue data on DIA’s website – or get in touch as I capture this annually.
We can also see that the number of machines in NZ is down by just over 100. This is driven by 14 venues closing or getting rid of their pokies: we are down to 803 venues as at the end of 2025. Of course many councils have shrinking lid policies on pokie venues. The amount granted in 2025 compared to 2024 has dropped by about $5m: whether this is driven by reduced network, competition from online or by less disposable income by pokie players remains to be seen. I recall a few years ago I determined that a reduced network didn't make much difference to the amounts granted, but things have changed a little since then.
If you are interested in the pokies that operate in your region and the sorts of groups they fund you can easily look at that through Granted. Local Canterbury grant seekers may be interested to see that Rano has now left the region, with that site now a Youthtown one.
I write about this stuff as believe that as need to understand where funding comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there. These 33 (now 32) entities have considerable stewardship over community funding. 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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