Sporting hero's hall of shame

Two more former top sportsmen have joined the sporting hero's hall of shame because of their misuse of pokie money.


On Friday the 2002 -2003 King Country rugby union coach Garry Crossman was sentenced to 200 hours of community work and ordered to repay almost $44,000 to a gaming machine society.


On Monday ex-rugby league star Brent Todd pleaded guilty to four fraud charges related to pokie money.

Problem Gambling Foundation CEO John Stansfield says the progression from sports star to pokie fraudster is not really that surprising.


"Pokie money tends to contaminate people who come into contact with it," he says.


"It is filthy money, generated by exploiting the vulnerable.


"Time and again we see people who have lived honest lives being seduced by the promise of easy money.


"It is common for problem gamblers to steal to keep gambling and equally common for people responsible for collecting pokie money for charity spend it on themselves.


"There is a cycle of theft and despair associated with pokies that the gambling industry and the Government simply won't face up to."


Mr Stansfield points to a string of other high profile sportspeople and administrators who have found themselves in trouble over pokie funds.


Former All Black Doug Rollerson, ex- Kiwi league captain Hugh McGahan and former Touch NZ chief executive officer Alistair Arnott are defending charges of defrauding thousands of dollars of pokie money.


Earlier this year the head of Rowing New Zealand resigned following a row over pokie funding.


Ex-league boss Graham Carden was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment in August for defrauding a gaming trust.


Mr Stansfield says that some sportspeople and administrators got used to pampered lifestyles underwritten by pokie funds.


"When you are prepared to live it up on the back of other people's misery it is likely to come back and bite you," he says.


"Sporting bodies need to start thinking carefully about the real price they are paying for their dependency on gambling money."


Mr Stansfield says his organisation will be raising the connection between crime and the pokies with the parliamentary select committee reviewing the Gambling Act at present.


"Just off the top of my head I can think of three other people convicted for stealing substantial amounts of money in the last couple of weeks he says.


"Two security guards stole money they were supposed to have been looking after so they could feed the pokie machines and the South Island manager of Toll Logistics New Zealand took $118,250 from his employer to feed his gambling habit."


"Who knows how many more are working their way through the court system."


Mr Stansfield says he believes that a substantial amount of gambling crime goes unreported because businesses don't want people knowing what happened or family and friends repay money to cover for someone with a gambling problem.





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