Tuesday, 13 April 2021, 6:35 am
When local authorities tighten gambling regulations,
player losses at the pokie machines are
reduced.
Around 10 percent of the New Zealand
population is impacted by problem gambling. Those impacts
include poor health, psychological distress, financial
difficulties and strained interpersonal
relationships.
AUT’s NZ Work Research Institute
(NZWRI) has just released a report, “Capping problem
gambling in NZ: the effectiveness of local government policy
intervention”.
Commissioned in 2020 by the Ministry
of Health, the report compared the outcomes of communities
that adhered to the minimum requirements of the Gambling Act
of 2003 and those that put in place stricter
regulations.
The Act limited the number of pokie