Labour and the Greens have slammed a deal announced for a new convention centre in Auckland today, saying the Government has handed SkyCity a licence to print money.

SkyCity shares have jumped after details of a controversial convention centre deal with the Government were announced today.

Details of the controversial SkyCity convention centre deal with the Government have been announced, with the listed casino operator paying $402m for the new centre.

Conceived over dinner almost four years ago, the Government's $350 million pokies-for-a-national convention centre deal with SkyCity is to be signed over breakfast today.

Susan Chow found herself in a hole so deep a drug overdose seemed the only escape.

One of the players in a P-ring that used Auckland's SkyCity casino as an office has lost $200,000 after running from his lawyer's office and breaching bail.

A banned poker machine addict slipped through all SkyCity's safety systems to play his way to VIP status in the casino's high-roller room - blowing $500,000 in the process.

Sarah was losing her husband. It wasn't another woman who had slipped into her life. Instead, John was taken by SkyCity casino.

It is not often you get a chance to look in the window of the Beehive's inner sanctum and see how a Prime Minister works.

Prime Minister John Key has backed away from statements to Parliament about SkyCity hatching a land deal with TVNZ.

TVNZ says it has had no approach from SkyCity to buy its land for the proposed convention centre, contrary to the Prime Minister's assurances yesterday.

SkyCity asked for taxpayers to pay for the marketing and promotion of the international convention centre, but the Government ruled it out.

National's damage control strategy has been to try to paint Key's earlier contacts with SkyCity as perfectly normal, writes John Armstrong

Key may not be losing much sleep. But this report is no comforting, soft bed of hay. It is a bed of nails, writes John Armstrong.

SkyCity got special treatment in its pitch to build the international convention centre - but nothing which will get in the way of a formal deal being struck.

Profits are down at SkyCity, after Rugby World Cup benefits weren't repeated and international visitors won more money than usual.

The public health experts who once led SkyCity's problem gambling programme say the casino doesn't do enough to prove they stop punters becoming addicts.

A Hamilton casino worker has been sentenced to nine months' home detention for accepting financial gifts from patrons.

Royce Duncan claimed his success as a gambler - not a methamphetamine manufacturer - was the reason he could afford so many expensive toys, such as a 15.2m (50ft) launch.

Brian Rudman asks: "If a national convention centre is the vital piece of missing infrastructure to guarantee our future prosperity, why are they shackling it to the whims of a gambling empire?"