KEY POINTS:
Many Pacific Island families have been forced to sell family heirlooms to fund their gambling addictions, MPs have been told.
Yesterday, campaigners told a parliamentary committee examining the Gambling Act Amendment Bill how poker machines have fuelled addictive behaviour.
Their submissions follow a Herald report last November that some gambling addicts in state houses were stripping carpet, ovens, stair rails, doors and water cylinders from their homes and selling them to scrap yards and pawnbrokers.
Problem Gambling Foundation CEO John Stansfield said poker machines were the biggest cause of problem gambling, with a lot of people doing all they could to get to a pokie.
"Family heirlooms, like 100-year-old kava bowls, end up in hock shops."
Mr Stansfield said targeting particular communities had also led to a large amount of problem gambling, specifically among minority groups and poorer communities.
"There is a higher concentration of pokie machines in poorer areas. Other major problems connected to problem gambling are the money lending and loan sharks in those areas.
"Casinos have also been known to deliberately target the Asian community. To specifically target a race - the last time we did that it was called slavery," he said.
Oral submissions were given by the Problem Gambling Foundation.
Manukau City councillor Colleen Brown acknowledged the thousands of submissions the council had received from people who had been affected by problem gambling.
Mr Stansfield said: "Eighty per cent of people who come in for treatment have been affected by pokie machines.
"In terms of Maori women in particular, that figure can reach up to 90 per cent."
He said reducing the number of poker machines and attaching safety devices were essential.
"There's no real protection here in New Zealand. More women are becoming hooked on pokies because the machines have been changed to appeal to them.
"They've got I Love Lucy, hearts and flowers on them now. The only real protection is better host responsibility."
Martin Cheer, chief executive for Pub Charity, which gives community groups funds from poker machines, said pokies were not to blame for problem gambling.
"Getting rid of gaming machines will not stop people who are addicted. Even if you do take away gaming machines, they [gamblers] will go somewhere else to get to a pokie," he said.
Mr Cheer said many people use the machines safely.
"A problem gambler has to be treated as an individual and not as a collective."
