Te Tari Taiwhenua - the Department of Internal Affairs - is linking September's 116 percent increase on the June quarter to the end of Covid-19 restrictions.

A Te Tari Taiwhenua spokesperson says the September quarter figures are higher than any of the June quarter figures for the past five years.

The increase is linked to regained access to level four venues when lockdown ended, the spokesperson says.

Under the level four restrictions, the pokie-machine venues were closed for seven to eight weeks.

The massive increase was also influenced when the Auckland region moved back into alert level three lockdown, the Te Tari Taiwhenua spokesperson says.

The pokie-machine profit for the September 2020 quarter was 8.1 percent higher than forecast. The forcast was based on the March 2020 quarter and historic gambling patterns.

Te Tari Taiwhenua is changing the way it structures and presents gambling data.

In doing so, it aims to increase its usability for more audiences to offer additional opportunities for understanding the wider gambling sector.

It also releases quarterly statistics in its role as regulator for gambling.

The Ministry of Health funds and coordinates problem gambling services.

For free and confidential information call 0800 654 655 or see the ministry's website.

Source

• Radio New Zealand
• Image: Morning Bulletin

That was $49m higher than last year, but once inflation and population growth were taken into account it was a slight decrease on the previous financial year. Continue reading

The Dolphin Treasure pokie sits on a bench in Charles Livingstone's office at Monash University in Melbourne, too heavy for even two people to move and emblazoned with gaudy dolphins swimming merrily over a treasure chest.

Despite its location in the furthermost corner of the room, it's impossible to miss.

"From my observations of gaming floors I notice a lot of middle-aged and older women playing it, patting the dolphins and their little fins," says Livingstone, who has dedicated his career to studying the harms of pokie addiction.

"They seem to be attracted to the cute icons and graphics.

"One time late at night at a bar in regional Victoria, I saw a lady who was hugging the machine in a very affectionate manner. Research has shown there are some people who tend to anthropomorphise poker machines."

The Dolphin Treasure poker machine, with its brightly coloured sea creatures, is the focus of a landmark legal case brought by Shonica Guy against Crown Casino and the poker machine manufacturer Aristocrat Technologies.

Guy started playing the pokies when she was 17 and she says she lost thousands of dollars over 14 years.

She is being represented pro bono by Maurice Blackburn lawyers.

The case has been unfolding in the federal court in Melbourne over the past two-and-a-half weeks before Justice Debra Mortimer, with Guy's lawyers arguing that Aristocrat and Crown are engaging in deceptive, misleading and unconscionable conduct by providing Dolphin Treasure poker machines to the public.

The case hinges on the Dolphin Treasure machine because researchers such as Livingstone know more about how, Guy argues, it sets up people for addiction than any other machine on gaming floors in Australia.

Guy's lawyers are not seeking damages - rather, they want poker machines to be designed fairly and for players to be genuinely informed about their prospects of winning. Continue reading

Sources

• The Guardian, article by Melissa Davey, Melbourne bureau chief for the Guardian.
• Image: Latitude News

It ripped the machines out of its Thompson Park clubrooms and turned its back on trust grants.

"A lot of the parents can't buy boots for their kids. They are saying they haven't got the money, and that they can't get them to the games because they can't get money for petrol," club chairman Dean Kini said.

"All those problems are associated with gambling and drinking. I didn't want to be a part of the problem." Continue reading

Pub Charity chief executive Martin Cheer said a submission by an Anglican body seeking Pokie reform was a factor in the rejection.

In a later statement Pub Charity said it "suspended funding to Anglican Church based organisations following statements made by the Anglican Bishop of Auckland, reported in April 2012, that ‘the Church refused to take any funding from pokie machines - a decision which had shut down access to a large pool of funding'."

The Auckland Anglican Diocese can no longer have access to Pub Charity funding because it is a requirement that every application being considered by Pub Charity contain a certified resolution of the applicant's governing body that it supports the application.

However, The Anglican Bishop of Auckland, Ross Bay, says he was only speaking for Auckland and not for the church nationally.

Cheer rejects the church's position allowing independence to member groups to apply for pokie funding. He has written to the Anglican leadership group demanding it take a position nationally on the issue.

He said the refusal to do so - while still making applications - highlighted the church's hypocrisy and leadership failures. "You can't have it both ways. You can't actively campaign to get rid of something then apply for money from it." He later modified his remarks.

Organisations not familiar with the way the institutional churches are structured find it difficult to understand that each diocese is an autonomous body and that they operate independently.

The Anglican Church is led by the General Synod which allows freedom to linked organisations to make their own decisions on many ethical areas - including applying for gaming funding.

Source

• The New Zealand Herald
• The New Zealand Herald
• Scoop
• 3News
• parliament.nz
• SeanPlunketFaceBook
• Image: The Guardian

A Curia poll found support from 87 per cent of respondents as lawmakers prepare to set new rules governing the availability of poker machines.

Across the Auckland region there are 4,183 pokie machines at 305 different venues. In 2011, $245 million dollars was lost on them.

Problem gambling figures suggest that around 40% of that money came from problem gamblers who are usually those who can least afford it.

Opposition to gambling venues has also been revealed in the more than 9,500 submissions received on Auckland Council's proposed policies on TAB and pokie venues.

The council aims to set policies for non-casino pokie venues, with 4069 gambling machines in pubs and clubs across the city.

Local governments are obliged by law to set policies and the new policy was the first chance to have a unified approach across Auckland.

"It's great to see so many people taking the time to make their views known on the subject of gambling," says Councillor Cathy Casey, Chair of the council's Social and Community Development Forum.

"We identified the need to minimise gambling-related harm in the Auckland Plan. These two policies are a way we can achieve that. It is clear from the number of submissions that our communities care very much about gambling in Auckland."

Problem Gambling Foundation national health manager Tony Milne said a sinking-lid policy would stop licences to run pokies being transferred from bars and clubs which closed. "The most powerful submissions come from people who have experienced the harm from pokie machines with accounts of lives … torn apart by pokie machines."

Source

• NZsport.yahoo.com
• The New Zealand Herald
• blog.greens.org.nz
• bobmccroskie.com
• Image: 3News

About a dozen people waved placards outside the Galaxy Takeaways shop in Otara last Saturday morning.

The shop's 18 pokies have been operating without a licence since it was revoked by the Department of Internal Affairs last month.

Continue reading

The Maori Party and the Greens are also sending the money back. They have rejected donations from the Todd Corporation. Todd Corporation owns Todd Energy and Todd Capital and has significant oil and gas mining interests.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the Todd Corporation had offered the Green Party $5000, which was rejected by the party under its "major donations" policy.

Dr Norman said although the Green Party approved of some of Todd's initiatives in energy, the party was opposed to some of its mining practices. "They also do some things we don't agree with. So we said `no thank you'. It wasn't acrimonious."

The Maori Party has followed the Green Party's lead by rejecting a $5000 donation from Todd Corporation, saying the company's mining interests were against its beliefs.

Source

• Auckland Now
• Otago Daily Times
• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Inksinct Cartoons