A lucky Tauranga local is on cloud nine after winning the $9.85 million Lotto Powerball prize following Saturday's draw.

SkyCity is targeting smokers with an expanded casino area designed for customers who want to have a cigarette while gambling.

The equivalent of an extra 240 poker machines are part of the SkyCity casino deal, with gambling opponents warning they could lead to new addiction problems.

The Government's pokies for convention centre deal cannot bind future governments to compensate SkyCity if the deal is revoked, leading constitutional lawyer Stephen Franks says.

While SkyCity this month got the nod for its controversial $402 million Auckland convention centre, a Queenstown expansion proceeds almost entirely outside the spotlight.

New Zealanders are forecast to spend more on Lotto, casinos, racing and sports betting in the next three years.

Some lucky person walked into a Florida supermarket over the past few days and bought a ticket worth an estimated $710m - the highest Powerball jackpot in history.

Dealing with the government is like dealing with no other business because the government can usually muster the numbers to make law, writes Mai Chen.

The Department of Internal Affairs has warned the Government that extra pokie machines at SkyCity risks increased harm to the community, Steven Joyce has confirmed.

The value of SkyCity Entertainment Group could get a $200 million boost after a $402 million deal announced yesterday.

Labour and the Greens have slammed a deal announced for a new convention centre in Auckland today, saying the Government has handed SkyCity a licence to print money.

Conceived over dinner almost four years ago, the Government's $350 million pokies-for-a-national convention centre deal with SkyCity is to be signed over breakfast today.

Internet bookmaker Tom Waterhouse may walk away clean as a whistle from the tawdry inquiry into allegations that he passed on confidential information from his trainer mother Gai to punters.

Police have appealed against the discharge given to the mother who left her children in a SkyCity Casino carpark while she and her partner gambled for two hours.

Susan Chow found herself in a hole so deep a drug overdose seemed the only escape.

A gambler who won a record $250,000 payout last month from the TAB after picking eight second-round NRL winners has done it again.

The Government has been urged to introduce facial-recognition technology for poker machines to restrict problem gamblers as part of an overhaul of gambling laws.

Nearly 100 kids were found wandering by themselves in SkyCity last year, a statistic which anti-gambling advocates say proves that problem-gambling is a growing issue.

Dozens of racing clubs in the south have been ordered to hand over files as part of a Serious Fraud Office probe into pokie grants.

More than 50 long-serving TAB workers look set to lose their jobs as the agency prepares to close its Auckland phone betting centre at Ellerslie.