Number of pokie machines continues to fall

1.00pm

Pokie machine numbers in pubs and clubs continued to drop during the past three months, figures out today from the Internal Affairs Department show.

According to the figures 22,294 gaming machines had been in operation in pubs and clubs at the end of September, down from 22,497 at the end of June. Fifteen months ago there had been 25,221 of the machines.

The number of societies operating machines was down from 699 15 months ago to 626, while the number of pub and club venues at which pokies operated dropped from 2122 to 1897 during the 15 months.

The number of gaming machines in pubs and clubs had dropped for the first time after the Gambling Act had been passed in September 2003, Internal Affairs said in a statement today.

New licensing rules were stricter and made it harder to get a gaming machine licence and easier to lose it.

Most licences expired on September 30 but in previous years many societies had been slow at applying to renew their licences.

This year, with the risk that late application could lead to licences being cancelled, only 20 out of the expected 527 applications had been outstanding on September 30.

On casinos, Internal Affairs said it was developing, under the new law, its own view of a cashless ticket system for gaming machines being used by Sky City in Auckland.

After banknote acceptors had been limited in March to accepting notes of up to $20 only, Sky City had applied to the now-defunct Casino Control Authority for approval to use a ticket system. The tickets had a value of up to $500 each, Internal Affairs said.

The authority had given limited approval, before the new Act came fully into force, allowing the tickets to be used on up to 300 of the casino's 1647 machines.

Any request to extend cashless technology beyond that would be looked at closely by the department under the new law, which included provisions aimed at minimising the harm caused by gambling.

Department spokesman Vince Cholewa said a decision about the use of all forms of cashless technology in gaming machines would be made after public consultation. A discussion document was being developed.

While the number of gaming machines in pubs and clubs was dropping that was not necessarily the same as a drop in the amount of money being gambled, Mr Cholewa said.

It was estimated that in the year to the end of June gross profits from gaming machines in pubs and clubs was more than $1 billion. In the previous year the figure had been $941 million.

- NZPA