Sky City’s playing us for suckers

• Mike Smith
• 9 years ago
• Categories: john key, parliamentary spending, same old national, Steven Joyce

Sky City crying too poor to build a bigger casino – give us a break, please! The extra pokies and license extension they negotiated was estimated (by casino expert Sudhir Kale, not the noddies the government used) to be worth an extra $35million a year – see Matt Nippert’s 2013 article. That’s $35million extra for year upon year to 2048. That extra $35million could cover any extra cost of the casino in four years, and there’s still the other twenty-nine to rake more in, as well as the worth of the licence extension.

Asking the taxpayer to cough up any extra for add-ons is corporate greed on Sky City’s part, and corporate welfare of the worst sort on John Key’s and Steven Joyce’s part. Either those two are being played for suckers, or they are playing the rest of us for suckers.

And it’s likely to get better for Sky City, year upon year, as the casino expert says. This deal stinks even worse.