Into The Jungle

How to play Into The Jungle

“While we’ve made substantial progress, our work is not finished. We’ll continue working with operators to recover funding for communities, improve compliance and maintain public confidence in the integrity of class 4 gambling.”

Alongside the recovery of NZ$11.5 million, the DIA also took action against the class 4 gambling society One Foundation.

One Foundation’s operating licence was suspended for six days after the DIA identified accounting failures relating to gambling proceeds, as well as a failure to surrender a licence for one of its pokies venues when required by law.

How to play Into The Jungle

“Stakeholders increasingly want evidence that initiatives deliver meaningful outcomes rather than simply demonstrating good intentions,” Skinner suggests.

That shift is increasingly visible across the sector, with DEI framed less as a standalone initiative and more as part of everyday business culture.

For Grainne Hurst, CEO of the Betting & Gaming Council in the UK, the evolution has been clear. “The conversation has moved beyond representation alone towards inclusion, retention, well-being and progression,” Hurst explains. “Businesses increasingly understand that DEI must be embedded in everyday culture, not treated as a separate initiative.”

What is Into The Jungle?

While the intention is to protect vulnerable households and ensure welfare is spent on essential needs, proposed measures are being complicated by legal, technical and privacy obstacles.

Harris Tsangarides, executive director of the Gaming & Casino Supervision Commission, said his department had noticed spikes in gambling activity coinciding with GMI payment dates, prompting the regulator to consider “technical solution” to cross-reference GMI beneficiary lists with casino membership records.

An issue raised by Giannis Vasiliadis, director of WBAS, was the limited access to recipients’ banking information. This limited data can hint at suspicious activity but cannot conclusively verify gambling transactions.