Offshore Gambling by New Zealanders Study

This report presents and discusses results of secondary analyses of the New Zealand National Gambling Study (NGS) data related to past year offshore gambling participation and expenditure, and associated risk factors. Offshore gambling is defined as gambling that is conducted in a country other than New Zealand (NZ) and can physically occur at a venue (whilst a NZ citizen is visiting the overseas country) or by remote interactive means via telephone, internet (e.g. through a desktop computer, laptop, iPad, iPhone or any other handheld device) or interactive television1 (whilst physically situated in NZ). Data from the first three years of the NGS (Wave 1 - 2012, Wave 2 - 2013 and Wave 3 - 2014) were analysed. Offshore internet/remote interactive gambling (referred to as offshore online/remote gambling) was compared with local (i.e. New Zealand-based) internet/remote interactive gambling and land-based (i.e. at a venue) gambling. There was a specific, but not exclusive, focus on sports and horse/dog race betting.

In brief, the NGS comprised a randomly selected national sample of 6,251 people aged 18 years and older living in private households who were interviewed face-to-face in 2012 (Wave 1). The response rate was 64% and the sample was weighted to enable generalisation of the findings to the New Zealand adult population. Wave 2 was in 2013 when 3,745 participants were re-contacted and re-interviewed. Due to budgetary constraints, attempts were only made to re-contact 5,266 of the original 6,251 participants; a 71% response rate was achieved. Wave 3 took place in 2014 with 3,115 participants re-interviewed (83% response rate).