Council bets on gaming machine cuts

New rules aimed at eventually cutting in half the number of gaming machines in a town at high risk of problem gambling have been approved.

At present there are 49 gaming machines in Waitara - around 70 machines for every 10,000 people, a report to New Plymouth District Council said.

Nationally, the figure is 32.7 gaming machines per 10,000 people, while in New Plymouth, which is not considered a problem gambling area, there are 39 machines.

At their meeting on Tuesday night New Plymouth district councillors voted to cap the number of machines in the region at 320 down from the current 369.

They also approved a ‘sinking lid’ policy for Waitara, meaning that if venues in the town surrender their gaming licences the number of machines there will be reduced.

The aim is to eventually bring the number of gaming machines in the town down from 49 to 25.

‘‘By reducing the number of machines, as gaming machine licences are surrendered through the sinking lid policy, we help reduce the risk for Waitara residents,’’ Liam Hodgetts, New Plymouth group manager strategy.

But the New Plymouth branch of the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand (PGFNZ) said the sinking lid policy should have been extended to the whole district - a suggestion that has the backing of the Taranaki District Health Board.

‘‘I think it’s really good that the council has recognised that there is a very high density of machines in Waitara and that they have put a sinking lid in there, but we would have hoped to have seen a sinking lid for the whole of New Plymouth,’’ Andree Froude, PGFNZ spokesperson, said.

‘‘It’s the best policy available to keep the number of machines down. The issue is that they’re really harmful. They do a lot of damage in our communities.’’

Froude said more than 40 per cent of the money put into pokie machines came from problem gamblers, and she described the machines as the most harmful form of gambling.

‘‘Over 50 per cent of people who present for help do so because of pokies.

‘‘Two out of five people who use the machines regularly have a problem or are at risk of developing a problem.’’

In 2016 the machines brought $15,895,179 to New Plymouth and $2,184,5751 was paid out in grants 13.7 per cent of the total gaming machine proceeds for the district.

In the year ended July 31, 2017 the NZ Communities Trust returned more than $1.1 million to the New Plymouth district and in October approved another $365,717 in grants to support 23 local groups.