Front-door ruling lights up the secret 'dark holes'

The Gambling Commission has told 11 Lion Foundation taverns to lock side entrances to gambling rooms in a bid to clean up "dark holes" where gambling addicts can hide.

The ruling is expected to bring changes at about 150 sites accessible from the street, forcing gamblers to go in through the front doors.

Problem Gambling Foundation clinical director Dr Philip Townshend said the decision would have a "significant impact" on gambling addicts who do not like to be seen.

"It peels away the veil of secrecy that people with gambling problems like to put around their gambling," he said.

"When we looked at some of the venues, there were very definitely some that were small, crowded black holes that are perfect for people to hide away in.

"Others where the machines are part of the bar or in a nice open space are much more like what the industry says it is doing, which is entertainment. The entertainment you get in a dark hole is likely to be an unsavoury kind of entertainment."

Lion Foundation chairman Mike Smith said the decision would hit the pubs' gambling revenues, which were already reeling from the recent smoking ban and other regulatory changes.

He said the foundation had to accept the decision, but would not implement it until the Internal Affairs Department applied the new rule to the other 140-odd affected venues.

The 11 Lion Foundation sites affected are: the Playhouse in Aotea Square, Auckland; Home Bar and Mad Dog Sports Bar, Tauranga; Hennessy's, Rotorua; Stumble Inn Cafe, New Plymouth; Brew Shack, in Napier; Empire Hotel, Featherston; Cambridge Hotel, Wellington; and the Bowling Green Hotel, Clarendon and Mitchell's Tavern in Dunedin.

In a unanimous decision, the Gambling Commission - Chief Commissioner Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin, and commissioners Mark Ford and Paul Stanley - ruled that all 11 bars must lock the outside doors from their gambling rooms at all times when the poker machines were in operation, and provide internal access "in direct line of sight to the main bar serving area".

At least one commissioner visited each site anonymously and supported the Secretary of Internal Affairs' argument that direct access from the street allowed under-age and problem gamblers to sneak into the gambling rooms unseen by bar staff.

Dr Townshend said a survey of problem gamblers in Nelson found that five out of the 46 pokie venues in town kept coming up. All five, and only "one or two others", had direct access to gambling rooms from the street.

"It was a really dominant factor," he said. "What problem gamblers like is they like secrecy - places where they can slip in relatively unobserved.

"We expect that not having that direct entry from the street will make the venues a lot safer because they won't be places that problem gambling happens."