Early this week, the government announced a rather distasteful plan. In return for giving regulatory favours to the Sky City Casino in the form of more favourable gambling regulations, the casino will build a massive conference centre.

The natty new conference centre, called the New Zealand International Conference Centre (NZICC) will allegedly provide 1,000 jobs during construction and 800 during operation – and attract 33,000 people per year. The government has evidently been persuaded that an international conference centre will be of such importance, that a special deal is justified.

Whether government should be involved in regulating casinos is another question, but given that it is, dishing out favourable treatment to one gambling provider in return for building a swanky convention centre surely breaches every rule of regulation. The law should be blind to the player, be rules rather than exceptions, and should not involve deals with individual players on the understanding they’ll do the government a solid deal.

What’s next, a meat works being given an effluent dispensation if it builds a kindergarten?

In this context, the ‘safe gambling’ precautions have acted as a useful smokescreen. Giving mates rates to a business would not fly in any other industry, because in other industries competition is valued. But it seems to be tolerated because of public concern about gambling.

There is also grounds to argue against it on poor taste: New Zealand will now have an international convention centre to attract the good and great (although it is unclear why it will attract people to Auckland as opposed to Singapore or Bali) directly funded by a gambling racket. The government is protecting a casino for a kickback: the conference centre.

Don’t misunderstand me, I am not against gambling and couldn’t care less how many pokies or blackjack tables Sky City Casino has. People are entitled to a punt. Gambling is as old as prostitution and regulating against it is about as successful as regulating against human nature.

However, this deal is low-rent stuff. It is not, as one business leader said, "a good example of creativity and sound planning." It is a worrying sign of crony capitalism, of which the public should be sceptical.

And judging by the polls on the matter, most people are.