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Rolls Royce at California
The Rolls Royce of Lotteries
The Commonwealth Games fund, which in the end required $21 million, was raised in a little over three months. That success and the promise of even greater profits ensured the continuation of scratch games. In Otara, one seller was forced to close his counter several times a day to prevent overcrowding, particularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays-benefit days. In Matron, thieves raided a local outlet’s rubbish bag in the hope that punters might have discarded winning california lottery tickets without realizing it. The game spawned look-alike competitions. The Department of Internal Affairs generally sanctioned those with prizes of $50 or less, but higher-stake scratch games appeared in hotels. Gaming inspectors warned publicans and the practice faded. Around mid-November the honeymoon ended. Purchases became steady rather than frantic, and profits stabilized. Nonetheless, Instant Kiwi turned over $135 million in its first year, more than had ever been spent on the Golden Kiwi. Moreover, it appeared that a new breed of punter was playing the game, since Lotto sales had declined by less than 5 percent.
Age Limit For Players
Instant Kiwi’s detractors claimed that the ''new breed'' were children. Eastern Hurt MP Trevor Young expressed concern that the game’s huge popularity was eating into the budgets of low-income families. Opposition MP John Carter claimed that, since the game was launched, sales of milk had slumped markedly. Both called for an age limit on players. Max Abbott, describing the nation as being ''in the midst of a gambling explosion'', worried that the game was ''hooking'' those of a tender age, which would add, in time, to the numbers of problem gamblers. ''It is like selling 20 percent proof vodka and orange to children as soft drink,'' he argued. In Auckland, he had implicit support from one self-confessed compulsive gambler who, in November 1989, tried to have Instant Kiwi declared illegal and banned.
Children's Spent Money for Gambling
Tales of woe were grist to the mill for those who, at the very least, wished to impose an age limit on the game’s ticket sales. In Wellington the actions of a seven-year-old girl, who calmly spent $50 on Instant California lottery Kiwi tickets in a video store, received wide publicity and adverse comment from the Evening Post, which argued that children’s pocket money should be spent on more innocent pursuits. The Otego Daily Times was also unhappy, proclaiming that the scratch game ''threatens to turn into a national sore unless medication [an age ban] is swiftly applied''. In a nostalgic return to the Calvinist angst that was the hallmark of Dunedin’s founding, the paper protested that too many New Zealanders would far rather seek reward through Instant Kiwi, Lotto or the TAB than secure it through old-fashioned hard work and thrift. But the Press had a different perspective, pointing out that parental gambling was giving children the wrong messages.
The case was being overstated. A March 1990 survey showed only 8 percent of children between the ages of five and fourteen playing Instant Kiwi, most preferring to spend their money on sweets, soft-drinks, ice creams and video games. The game came sixteenth on a list of 21 measured items and, of those who played, a child’s average weekly expenditure on it was 25 cents. The activity of the Wellington seven-year-old was clearly atypical. Moreover, a ban on the sale of cigarettes to children under sixteen had proved impossible to enforce, with the police having to relying on the honesty and integrity of dairy owners. For more than a handful, the age restriction on Instant Kiwi merely set the scene for a continuing adolescent challenge to authority.
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