Casino lawsuit on the cards

Auckland's Skycity casino could face a landmark class action from problem gamblers whose lives have been destroyed by pokie machines.

The Problem Gambling Foundation is monitoring a test case in Australia which seeks compensation from the Government and gambling industry for losses suffered by gambling addicts.

The class-action on behalf of more than 200 problem gamblers claims the Australian gaming industry breached its duty of care in not identifying and discouraging their behaviour.

One of the litigants, Susan Pinkerton, who lost $60,000 over three years, will address the Foundation later this year.

Foundation head John Stansfield told the Herald on Sunday it was "inevitable" a similar lawsuit would be filed in the near future against SkyCity. He estimated one in six visitors to the casino were problem gamblers - SkyCity rejected this.

"If the Australian case is successful, we'll be into this like a rat up a drainpipe. The potential damages could be huge - millions and millions of dollars," Stansfield said.

"What we will say is that SkyCity has made rapacious super profits, now let's deduct from those the costs to others. They simply don't do enough to deal with problem gambling. It's time they were made accountable."

He believed SkyCity's customer loyalty card scheme was a way to identify problem gamblers as it provided a database of customers and their spending habits.

SkyCity rejected the claims, saying between 86 and 90 per cent of total harm from problem gambling was related to non-casino venues. Those seeking treatment as a consequence of casino gaming had also declined since 1999.

Spokesman David Kennedy was dismissive of the class action threat. SkyCity is looking at the legal ramifications of how it could use information it gathered about punters spending habits to reduce problem gambling.

Less than 30 per cent of customers had loyalty cards and it would breach privacy laws if cards were used for anything but their original purpose, he said.