After being fined for posting gambling ads, Millie Elder-Holmes tried again - this time from Asia

After becoming the first person in New Zealand to pay a $5000 fine for promoting overseas gambling, Kiwi socialite and online influencer Millie Elder-Holmes allegedly tried a new tactic three months later to achieve the same purpose.

The adopted daughter of late broadcaster Paul Holmes again posted videos described by prosecutors as having promoted a Belize-based gambling site to her tens of thousands of followers on Facebook and Instagram.

But, this time, they were shared while she visited Hong Kong, a judge was recently told as her lawyer petitioned to dismiss the charges due to lack of jurisdiction.

That effort, however, has now failed. The contested infringement notices will remain intact for now, Judge Gus Andree Wiltens decided in a pre-trial decision issued this week.

The Department of Internal Affairs began cracking down on ads in April last year,sending letters to four then-unnamed influencers warning them that promoting foreign gambling sites on New Zealand-based social media posts violates the Gambling Act.

“In spite of this, she continued,” the director of gambling regulatory services for Internal Affairs, Vicki Scott, told the Herald last year.

Elder-Holmes, 38, was issued her first $5000 fine in May 2025 and paid it a month later.

She then went to Hong Kong in August that year.

The Department of Internal Affairs issued another round of infringements to Elder-Holmes and four other influencers last September. Among them was Head Hunters member Calen Morris – the cousin of Elder-Holmes’ murdered long-time partner, Connor Morris.

Calen Morris told a judge at his sentencing on an unrelated matter in July this year that he tried a similar tactic, travelling to the Cook Islands before posting the ads. But he opted to pay $20,000 in fines for four separate breaches rather than try to fight them in court.

Images of social media personality Millie Elder-Holmes promoting overseas gambling have resulted in Internal Affairs infringement notices, which she is fighting.

In the current case, the Department of Internal Affairs has accused Elder-Holmes of violating the Gambling Act twice in August last year – once for her Instagram account and another for an identical post on her Facebook page.

The law bars most advertising about overseas gambling aside from health messages about problem gambling, business-to-business ads targeted at gambling equipment buyers, and posts in which “the publicising or promotion of gambling or a gambling operator is incidental to the purpose of the advertisement”.

The fine is $5000 per incident when issued as an infringement. The Department of Internal Affairs can also ask it be heard in the District Court, at which point a judge can order a fine of up to $10,000 per charge.

Because Elder-Holmes has requested that it be heard in the District Court, she now faces up to $20,000 in total fines instead of $10,000 if she is not successful at trial.

During the pre-trial hearing last month in Auckland District Court, defence lawyer Steven Lack noted that the Gambling Act has been updated this year to explicitly state that the law can be applied to people who post from overseas.

Millie Elder-Holmes' online content has come under fire again.

That wouldn’t apply to Elder-Holmes because her alleged offending predated the law change, he said.

The former Gambling Act 2003, which Elder-Holmes was charged under, is not as clear about whether someone can be charged for posting from overseas, he argued.

“[The defence] submits the stark contrast between the two pieces of legislation is clear evidence that Parliament did not intend the 2003 Act to have extra-territorial effect,” the judge noted in his reserved decision.

But prosecutors argued that by “publishing” the gambling ads in New Zealand to her followers, Elder-Holmes committed a crime locally regardless of whether she was on New Zealand soil when the post button was pushed.

Judge Andree Wiltens seemed initially sceptical of the argument during the hearing.

“If I take a picture of myself gambling in the Middle East and send it to my brother in Cambridge ... that can’t be the meaning of the Act, can it?” he asked.

Prosecutor Hannah Reid said the gambling ad reflected “a far greater extent of publication directed at New Zealanders”. She noted there were references to New Zealand dollars in Elder-Holmes’ posts.

The late Sir Paul Holmes with daughter Millie Elder at a special investiture ceremony held in Hawke's Bay in 2013. Photo / Richard Robinson

Prosecutors would try at trial to break down what percentage of the influencer’s followers were based in New Zealand, she said.

There was “significant public interest to proceed with the infringement”, Reid said, describing it as “repeated conduct” by Elder-Holmes.

“Not quite,” the judge responded. “What she did the first time wasn’t from Hong Kong. You know it won’t happen again because the new Act will catch it.”

But in his reserved decision this week, the judge ruled that case law supports the prosecution’s point.

“The acts of posting the videos occurred in Hong Kong but resulted in Ms Elder-Holmes’ carefully crafted communications being available to New Zealanders in New Zealand,” the judge wrote. The fact that non-New Zealanders, whether in New Zealand or elsewhere, also had access is immaterial.

“Accordingly, I conclude this court has jurisdiction to deal with the current infringement notices against Ms Elder-Holmes.”

The matter is scheduled to be called again next month in Manukau District Court.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.