As part of a brief licence suspension, SkyCity will close its casino in Auckland for five days later this year.

As part of a brief licence suspension, SkyCity will close its casino in Auckland for five days later this year.

 Within the terms of a deal with New Zealand's secretary of internal affairs, SkyCity Entertainment Group has decided to temporarily close its land-based casino in the city of Auckland.
 SpaceCity H1
 As per the deal, SkyCity Auckland will be closed for five days in a row this year.  The exact date of this event is unknown, but it was agreed that the closing would end the case of the licence suspension.

 People who used to shop at SkyCity Auckland made a report to the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) in February 2022. This is related to the application to suspend the licence.  This was about how the casino didn't follow rules about responsible gaming from August 2017 to February 2021.

 After looking into the case, the secretary of internal affairs asked for SCML, a SkyCity subsidiary, to have its casino licence briefly taken away.  At the time, it said there were worries about being able to prove that the casino was open all the time.  It was asked for to be suspended in September 2023.

 The closing will probably hurt the company's core group EBITDA in FY2025, causing a loss of around NZ$5.0m (£2.3m, €2.8m, or $3.0m).

 SkyCity is changing its FY2025 forecast because of this. It now says that underlying group EBITDA will be between NZ$245.0m and NZ$265.0m.  This is less than the NZ$250.0m to NZ$270.0m that was expected before.

 What is in the town in SkyCity?
 In the settlement, SkyCity and SCML both admitted that they did not follow the rules for responsible gambling. They also said that the specific failure of continuous play was caused by a design mistake with the technology system, which had since been fixed.  

 SCML also admitted that it did not use staff watch and intervention or its technology system to find continuous play well enough.  It also apologised to the secretary of internal affairs in an official way for what happened.

 The DIA said in its own response to the case that SkyCity had taken "swift" action and was working to make its processes better.

 DIA said, "It is encouraging to see the work SkyCity has done to improve its performance in this area and its public promise to keep getting better." 

 SkyCity is trying to make risk management better.  
 Julian Cook, chair of SkyCity, said that the closure would be the end of the case and that SkyCity had taken new steps to make sure that similar problems don't happen again.

 "We still need to do a lot of work to improve our risk systems," he said. "This includes how we deal with financial crime and problem gambling."

 "SkyCity has clearly not focused, invested, or used its resources and time as well as it should have in the past."  This is not okay, and we are committed to totally fixing it as part of our regulatory duties and more general social license.

 SkyCity started a multi-year effort in 2021 to improve how it handles risk across all of its business.  This includes putting together a risk and compliance group and hiring new directors with experience in risk.  In addition, SkyCity has hired a group chief risk officer and improved both internal and external auditing.

 In addition, SkyCity has promised that all of its casinos in New Zealand will require card games.  It will open its first casino in Adelaide, Australia, by the end of next year. This will happen by the middle of 2025.

 In the meantime, SkyCity named experienced gaming executive Jason Walbridge as its new CEO in April. He will start in July.  Michael Ahearne recently quit the group, and Walbridge is taking his place.

 SkyCity's COO, Callum Mallett, said, "We remain committed to making sure that we provide safe and responsible experiences and environments for our people and customers."  "We will continue to work together with our regulators in a friendly and helpful way."