Pokies off limits to promote Gamblefree Day | Manawatu-Wanganui News | Local News in Manawatu-Wanganui

 

Access to pokie machines will be closed at two Wanganui watering holes in a small beginning to Gamblefree Day tomorrow.

The Avoca Hotel in Upokongaro is closing off its pokie machines all day, and the St John's Club in town is to close its pokie annex from 10am to 2pm.

Stellar Restaurant and Bar and the Wanganui East Club were interested, but circumstances made it difficult for them to join this year.

Sharna-Lee Packer, the Maori Problem Gambling Health Promoter at Nga Tai o te Awa, hopes tomorrow is just the beginning. She'd like to see every pokie machine in the city off-limits on some future September 1 - New Zealand's Gamblefree Day.

Gambling hasn't been seen as a problem in the past, but it is for people who spend their disposable cash and then can't stop.

Wanganui had 268 pokie machines at 19 venues, she said. It lost one venue when the Commercial Club closed.

Wanganui people pushed $10,014,719 into those machines in the last 12 months.

Managers of Wanganui's gambling venues are often amazed how much money is spent and how little of it comes back to the same communities as grants from gambling trusts.

It's estimated that one in 58 people has a problem with gambling. That would mean there are 540 in Wanganui, mainly women and more than 80 per cent Maori and Pasifika.

The average Wanganui person over 18 spends $319.75 a year on the pokies. That's a lot for some, considering many people don't spent anything. And it doesn't count other forms of gambling, either online or through the TAB.

It's also estimated that problem gambling affects five other people for each gambler who just can't stop - in things like family violence, depression, fraud and poverty. For Wanganui that would be 2700 people affected.

The point of Gamblefree Day is mainly to get people thinking about problem gambling and what they can do to help. Staff from Nga Tai o Te Awa, one of six Maori Development Organisations, will be out distributing leaflets and getting answers to a questionnaire.

They hope people will support Wanganui District Council's policy of reducing the number of pokie machines in town.

Mrs Packer's predecessor lobbied for this, and there will be a question about it in the upcoming referendum.

The policy aims to shrink the number of pokie machines by refusing consent for new venues. When a venue closes the machines go too, unless it's reopened within six months and the new owner wants them.

Mrs Packer has been in her full-time job since April last year.

About one per cent less money has been put into the city's pokie machines this year than last year, and fewer people are being counselled about problem gambling.

For more information, see www.gamblingproblem.co.nz

PROBLEM GAMBLING SIGNS

• Sells possessions to gamble proceeds
• Irritable when unable to gamble
• Unwilling to talk about finances
• Unwilling to talk about activities
• Preoccupied with gamblingBorrows money to fund gambling