KEY POINTS:
On average, every $2 coin in your pocket has been through a poker machine six times in the past year.
The first data from a new $35 million electronic monitoring system, to be presented at a gambling conference in Auckland today, shows that people sank $2.4 billion into non-casino gambling machines in the past year.
Almost $900 million of this was in $2 coins - which was 6.7 times the total value of $2 coins in circulation.
Most of the rest ($1.4 billion) was in $20 notes, but this was only 1.2 times the value of $20 notes on issue.
The data, based on the monitoring system that started last April, is the first time anyone has known the gross amount being wagered on the country's 20,000 non-casino pokies.
Official Internal Affairs Department figures show that gamblers lose a net figure of around $1 billion a year on the pokies.
The new data shows that they may be taking out winnings of up to the remaining $1.4 billion out of the $2.4 billion they are spending.
However, this is a maximum figure because an unknown amount of the $2.4 billion may come from recycling winnings back into the machines.
The Problem Gambling Foundation's research director, Dr Philip Townshend, said the figures were still only approximate because they were based on annualising data for three of the first four months of the monitoring system, May to July last year.
But if they are confirmed in the first annual figures, they mean gamblers' winnings on the pokies are a maximum of 58 per cent of the amount being gambled.
This is less than returns to players of around 70 to 90 per cent often claimed by the machine manufacturers, and much less than the 81 per cent of bets placed on horse racing that is paid out to punters.
But it is comparable with lotto, which pays out 56 per cent of its takings in prizes.
"That 70 to 90 per cent is a virtual figure. Now we actually have the real figure and it's a maximum of 58 per cent," Dr Townshend said. But the position is confused because on top of the $2.4 billion in real money that gamblers put into the pokies, they wager a further $5.1 billion in "virtual" spending - money that they win but do not actually take out of the machines by pressing the "collect" button.
"When you win, it accumulates in credits on the machine until you press 'collect'," Dr Townshend said. If all the virtual spending is counted as winnings, the total winnings are between $5.1 billion and $6.5 billion out of a grand total of $7.5 million being wagered - 68 to 87 per cent.
Dr Townshend said most of the money being lost on the pokies came from the poor, with more than half of all poker machines in the poorest 30 per cent of communities.
"The system is unfair. Only 14 per cent of adults are gaming machine gamblers and thus contribute to community funding, and most of the money is contributed (or lost) by the 5 per cent of adults who are regular players," he said.
"The system is inefficient. For $1 to find its way to the community, someone else has to lose nearly $3."
The $1 billion of gamblers' net losses are split roughly a third each to taxes, gambling trust expenses and profits, and grants to community groups.
The last available figures show that pub-based trusts paid out $273 million to the community in 2005. Half (49 per cent) went to sports clubs, 38 per cent to social and community services, 4 per cent each to the arts and conservation and 5 per cent to other groups.
www.pgfnz.co.nz/2008conference
