Christchurch sinking lid pokies policy to be retained

Christchurch City Council maintains one of the most restrictive pokie machine policies in New Zealand, with the measures set to remain in place for another three years

Christchurch City Council maintains i of the most restrictive pokie political machine policies inwards New Zealand, with the measures localise to remain inward localise for another troika years.

Because of the 'sinking lid' policy, no young licences allowing gambling in pubs and clubs put up be approved, and the existing licences cannot be moved to another location. The policy has been inwards put since 2004 and is topic to renewal every trio years.

Christchurch currently has 82 pub and bludgeon play venues and 1,291 pokie machines operating (which is fewer than the 2,158 machines operating back in 2004, and half the figure of venues since that year).

According to a council staff report, despite the decrease in machines and venus, Christchurch still has to a greater extent machines per capita than the national average. Data from the cover shows Christchurch has 3.3 machines per 1,000 residents, Auckland has 1.9, and Wellington and Dunedin sit around on the subject average out of 2.9 machines per 1,000 residents.

The same story said Christchurch was over-present inward the statistics of people receiving handling for play dependency and other gambling-related issues; it also showed that Christchurch accounted for 8% of New Zealand’s population (with 10% of the total number of gamblers who accessed aid in 2020 being from the city).

Jarrod True, of the Gaming Machine Association of New Zealand, argued that by limiting pokie machines the council was only when limiting recreational players, as the identification number of online gambling users is going up. Therefore, restricting memory access to physical gambling does not stoppage people who are addicted because: “People will e'er chance a political machine to frolic if they are addicted to gaming.”