Lottery, pokies make Kiwis gamble $91M more in 2017

The Kiwis apparently couldn’t resist the allure of big lottery jackpots last year.

Stuff reported that New Zealanders took out an extra NZ$125 million (US$91 million) from their pockets to gamble last year, citing statistics from the country’s Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).

From NZ$2.2 billion ($1.63 billion) in 2016, the DIA announced that the Kiwi’s gambling expenditure rose by 5.35 percent to NZ$2.33 billion ($1.72 billion) last year. The government said that the residents gambled more money in lottery, followed by pokies machines.

Data showed that money spent on lotteries climbed 28 percent. New Zealand lotteries saw its product sales jump 26.8 percent to NZ$555 million ($408.37 million) in 2017 from NZ$437 million ($321.54 million) in 2016.