28 September 2021
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
S Rasool
fyi-request-16572-
[email address]
Dear S Rasool
OIA request 21/22 0208 Request for information relating to the Lottery Grants Board
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 30 August 2021.
You requested –
•
Dear New Zealand Lottery Grants Board,
Please confirm the revenue generated by Lotto NZ for each year from 1987 till date. Also,
list the revenue exclusive of GST in one column and GST separately in the other column.
In order to ensure we were providing you with relevant information, you were asked in an email
of 23 September 2021 to clarify whether you were seeking information relating to Lotto New
Zealand (Lotto NZ) or Lottery Grants Board (LGB). This was because both entities were
referenced in your request, as quoted above.
As explained in our email,
Lotto NZ exists to provide safe gaming that allows New Zealanders to
play and win, while contributing money back to New Zealand communities. Under the Gambling
Act 2003, all profits from playing Lotto are used to benefit New Zealand communities. The New
Zealand Lotteries Commission runs the Lottery, and the
New Zealand LGB distributes its profits.
As we are yet to receive clarification from you, please see the following response to your
request.
Lotto NZ
I must advise that Lotto NZ is not a function of the Department. Therefore, if it is information
relating to Lotto NZ that you are seeking, we must refuse your request pursuant to section
18(g)(i)of the Act; the information requested is not held by the department or venture or
Minister of the Crown or organisation and the person dealing with the request has no grounds
for believing that the information is held by another department (for itself and for a
departmental agency hosted by it or an interdepartmental executive board serviced by it) or
interdepartmental venture or Minister of the Crown or organisation, or by a local authority .
Should you wish to enquire about Lotto NZ’s revenue, you may contact them directly at
[email address].
Lottery Grants Board
If it is information relating to the LGB that you are seeking, it is important for me to explain that
all of Lotto NZ’s
profits are allocated to the LGB, and are considered to be the LGB’s revenue.
I can confirm that there is no GST component to the Lotto NZ profits allocated to the LGB. For
organisations who are awarded a grant by the LGB, and are GST registered, the GST is added
when the grant is awarded. It is important for me to note that the GST in these instances is not
deducted from the allocation. The full allocation is awarded as a grant and not used to pay any
GST amounts.
The portion of your request relating to the yearly GST amount, and revenue exclusive of GST, is
therefore refused pursuant to section 18(e) of the Act; that the document alleged to contain the
information requested does not exist.
I can also confirm that the Department does not hold the amounts allocated to the LGB from
Lotto NZ prior to 1997. The portion of your request relating to a yearly breakdown of the Lottery
Grants Board’s revenue prior to 1997 must therefore also be refused under section 18(e) of the
Act; that the document alleged to contain the information requested does not exist or, despite
reasonable efforts to locate it, cannot be found.
In response to the portion of your request relating to the LGB’s yearly revenue from 1997 to
date, I can advise that pursuant to section 15(1)(b) of the Act, the Department has decided to
provide you with the information. However, we are still working to prepare the information for
release and will provide it as soon as practicable. We anticipate having the requested
information to you no later than 8 October 2021.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, the Department has
decided to proactively release a copy of this response on the DIA website. All requestor data,
including your name and contact details, will be removed prior to release. The released
response will be made available here:
https://www.dia.govt.nz/Official-Information-Act-
Requests-2.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely
Julia Taylor
Manager Operational Policy and Official Correspondence
Service Delivery and Operations
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