New Zealand authorities have officially withdrawn a previous 10-day application made to temporarily suspend SkyCity Entertainment Group’s Auckland casino gambling area after the company agreed with a 5-day operation suspension.
SkyCity Entertainment Group previously announced it would close its Auckland casino for five consecutive days in 2024 as part of an agreement with the Home Office after admitting breaches of host liability requirements.
The specific dates for the closure have not yet been disclosed but will span from Monday to Friday.
This closure follows an arrangement with the DIA, which included the department’s agreement to withdraw its application for a temporary suspension of SkyCity’s casino operator’s licence.
The original application, filed in September 2023, called for a suspension of approximately ten days after a former customer who gambled at the Auckland casino from 2017 to early 2021 filed a complaint. DIA stated that SkyCity did not comply with host liability rules regarding continuous customer gaming.
In a statement today, SkyCity informed that the application made by the secretary for internal affairs in September 2023 has now been formally withdrawn from the Gambling Commission, which ‘confirmed that the matter is at an end’.
The company added:
SkyCity will now liaise with the Secretary to agree the dates upon which the gambling area of the SkyCity Auckland casino will be temporarily closed, being five consecutive days from Monday to a Friday.
The group has admitted that it did not comply with the SkyCity Auckland Host Responsibility Programme’s criteria (HRP). The business acknowledged that it did not use staff observation and intervention with the requisite care to recognize and address consumer play events.
SkyCity conceded it did not independently or adequately use staff observations alongside technology to monitor and address problematic behavior, particularly in cases where such behavior was silent or hidden.
Callum Mallett, SkyCity’s New Zealand COO, issued an apology for the “significant” failings, stating that the company is rightfully being held accountable.
The five-day closure is expected to impact SkyCity’s underlying earnings by approximately $5 million. Despite this setback, SkyCity projects its group underlying earnings for the 2025 financial year to be between NZ$245 million ($148.93 million) and NZ$265 million ($161.1 million).
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