Choose your own numbers or leave it to the machine? With a cool $25 million up for grabs this weekend Lotto players can be forgiven for pausing over each step.

The TAB is offering its own free kick for next month's soccer World Cup - and the winner will net $5 million.

A new commission structure for pubs with pokie machines is being condemned by anti-gambling lobbyists as "a giant leap backwards".

A New Zealander has reportedly been arrested in Thailand after police raided an illegal gambling den in the seedy tourist hotspot Pattaya.

The Problem Gambling Foundation will take the Ministry of Health to court to try to overturn a decision.

Little is known about high-roller Zhao Li, except that he is - or was - fabulously rich. So rich a Melbourne casino lent him $14m for a one-day gambling spree.

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.

An Auckland man who says he won $125 on card tables at SkyCity is now before the courts accused of cheating.

Pacific broadcaster Fa'amatuainu Tino Pereira was the sole non-bureaucrat on a panel that evaluated bids in a controversial tender that axed most of the Problem Gambling Foundation's funding.

Two of the six panel members who made the shock decision to stop funding the Problem Gambling Foundation had conflicts of interest, a review has found.

A gambling industry leader was among the first people knocking on the Salvation Army's door this week after news broke that the army had displaced the country's main help agency for gambling addicts.

The Problem Gambling Foundation is seeking legal advice over a possible High Court challenge to a controversial Government decision to axe funding for most of its services for gambling addicts.

Editorial: Revenge may well be a dish best served cold. It can also be best served by a third party, with no obvious fingerprints and in a way that offers plausible deniability.

The Salvation Army says it was unaware it would be taking over as the lead agency for gambling addiction services after the Ministry of Health controversially cut funding to the Problem Gambling Foundation.

The plug has been pulled on government funds for the Problem Gambling Foundation, amid claims it's payback for opposing the SkyCity convention centre deal.

The mystery millionaire who won $26 million on Powerball three weeks ago has spent up large on cars and is planning to follow the All Blacks on tour.

A former gambling trust administrator has been sentenced to home detention after misusing more than $1.7 million in proceeds that should have gone to the community.

James Driver played a video game 16 hours a day for two years. Now he's trying to help other addicts kick the habit.

A man used chewing gum to block poker machine cash slots before returning to pinch other people's jammed winnings.

Treating gambling addicts who commit crimes would be much cheaper than jailing them, and would reduce reoffending, says a New York judge.

An Otago man has turned a $10 bet into six figures, just a week after a man from a neighbouring town did exactly the same thing.

A $10 bet at the TAB has scored a $300,000 windfall for a Dunedin man who says he's too old to spend his winnings.

A couple from Taupo unwrapped a very generous present this Christmas when a Lotto ticket they received as a gift won them $1 million with Lotto First Division.

2013 was the year Britain lost its innocence in the fixing debate. A former Premier League player was filmed by an undercover reporter claiming he could arrange for players to be sent off in exchange for a $140,400 fee.

Queenslanders are frantically checking their lottery tickets as the hunt goes on for Australia's newest multi-millionaire - who is holding on to a ticket worth A$70m.

Labour leader David Cunliffe took the attack to Prime Minister John Key as the Government backed a convention centre deal with SkyCity.