GamblingPetipeti

The Gambling Act 2003 and Racing Industry Act 2020 require Council to have a Class 4 Venues Policy and a TAB Board Venue Policy and these polices must be reviewed every three years. Our next review of this policy is now due. 

Class 4 Gambling refers to any activity that involves the use of gaming machines (also known as ‘pokies’) outside of a casino (e.g. in pubs and clubs) and may only be run by a licensed corporate society. Class 4 Gambling rules also state these machines can only be used to raise money for community organisations and for non-commercial purposes. 

Council can use a policy to control the total number of machines in the district and per venue, and the location of these venues. 

A Board Venue or TAB is a premise that is owned or leased by TAB New Zealand where its main business is providing racing betting or sports betting services. A council must develop a policy which specifies whether or not new TAB venues may be established in that district and, if so, where they can be located. 

There are limited ways a council can influence the harm caused by gambling. One way is to prevent new venues opening, and therefore decreasing the opportunity for gambling to occur. This can be done by lowering the total number of machines that are allowed to operate in the district. Another is to limit the ability of existing venues to relocate within the district. 

When a review of a Class 4 Gambling and Board Venue Policy takes place an assessment of the social impacts of gambling must be completed. We’ve recently completed a review that showed while the number of Class 4 gambling venues and machines has dropped in the Central Hawke’s Bay District, the average spend has still stayed relatively the same. 

The availability of funding to community and local sports groups is considered a key benefit to the district from having Class 4 gambling venues.  This has also been taken into consideration as part of the review. 

There is currently a cap of 1 machine per 300 residents allowed in the Central Hawke’s Bay District at any time, and we are proposing the 2021 policy adopts a sinking lid policy and to increase the cap of machines to 1 machine per 500 residents as this brings the ratio in line with the current statistics, in relation to current number of machines to residents, for Central Hawke’s Bay District. We are also proposing that Council adopt a no relocations policy. 

The implementation of a sinking lid means the number of gaming machines will not increase and if a venue closes the machines cannot be transferred or relocated elsewhere. This will result in a natural attrition in the number of venues and machines over time but would not affect existing venues or current community grant funding in the short term as the decline occurs slowly.