Maori and Pacific problem gambling services have won more money out of a tender which stopped all funding for the country's biggest provider, the Problem Gambling Foundation, except for its Asian services.
New details emerging from the tender process reveal that another mainstream provider, Odyssey House, has also lost all its funding.
The total problem gambling funding of $11.8 million a year has instead gone to the Salvation Army, which will integrate problem gambling with its other addiction and social services, and to dedicated Maori and Pacific services.
The last NZ Health Survey in 2012 found that Maori and Pacific people were about three times as likely as European and Asian people to have experienced problems because of someone else's gambling.
A high proportion of problem gamblers are also addicted to drugs, tobacco and alcohol, often related to poverty. The survey found that 8.3 per cent of gamblers in the poorest fifth of neighbourhoods were at moderate or high risk of being problem gamblers, 14 times higher than the 0.6 per cent at risk in the richest fifth of neighbourhoods.
