Politics Live Blog: 28 August - 3 September

Kieran McAnulty, who is the Minister for racing, says National has massively overestimated its potential tax take from online casino gambling, which its finance spokesperson Nicola Willis said could bring in $180 million a year. 

"Its no where near as much they say it's going to be," he said. "Our figures say it would be around $40m to $50m."

But Willis said there was no way there was a mistake in the calculations. "We have used our own modelling."

McAnulty said the Department of Internal Affairs research estimated a maximum of $600m was spent on overseas gambling. But it most likely closer to $300m, he added.  This included online gambling, casino games, sports and racing. 

"So their figure of $180 million a year from tax just doesn't add up. There's work underway at the moment to regulate the overseas gambling industry at the moment."

The Government was looking to regulate online gambling, and Cabinet ministers in May agreed in principle in stop New Zealanders being able to place online bets with overseas providers.

"There's work underway at the moment to regulate the overseas gambling industry at the moment. There's some operators [that] don't pay GST, which is what the National Party are looking to do, but 15% to come up with what they're proposing would mean that they would have to be three to four times as much that actually is occurring."

National used strategic advisor Castalia to forecast online casino gambling revenue and tax treatment of casino gambling services.