Pokie addiction costs $85K a day

For Mere it started out as a bit of fun; entertainment to get a bit of a buzz while at the pub.

But it ended up a $300 a week habit and Mere (not her real name) realised she was addicted to pokie machines and she'd better do something about it before it cost her far more than money.

Mere is one of many Northlanders addicted to the pull of the pokies who between them put more than $85,000 into the gaming machines every day.

Northland pokie machine players are putting $85,359 into the addictive machines every day, with more than $7.7 million spent on the pokies in the region in the first three months of this year.

Mere says she is now "on the good side" of her pokie addiction after seeking help, but she feels the only way to stop people getting addicted to the pokies was to ban them totally.

"I just started playing a little bit, dabbling then not playing for days. It was more just for entertainment and a bit of fun," she said.

"Then when you have a loophole in your life you get into it a lot more and start to mix with the people who play all the time and you get a good buzz out of it, especially when you win. But just like any addiction you build up a tolerance to the buzz and you have to put in higher stakes, because the higher the stakes the more you can win and the bigger the buzz."

Mere is a smart, hard-working professional, but her addiction started costing more than $300 a week and she realised she'd better get help before it cost her far more.

"I'm sure I would have lost relationships and friends if I didn't get help," she said. "But really I can't understand how they can get away with preying on human weaknesses and making a profit from it; $85,000 a day is a lot of money coming out of the pockets of people, many who cannot really afford it, and I think the Government is in on the racket for allowing it to happen."

Diane Matthews, the gambling counsellor at the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand (PGFNZ) in Whangarei, said 40 per cent of people who used pokies were identified as being problem gamblers.

Ms Matthews said Maori were three times more likely to develop a gambling problem and the reality was pokie machines tended to be put in areas with high Maori population and poorer communities.

"Gambling in low socio-economic areas is about hope, the hope that things will change. Things don't change much on a day-to-day basis when you are poor, but to win $1000 [pokie jackpot] means you can fill the fridge with kai and buy nice things for you and the kids," she said.

Ms Matthews said the biggest problem was the accessibility of pokie machines, with them usually within walking distance of poor communities.

"The Far North ... spends more on pokies than Whangarei, despite having about half the population," she said.

Figures released by the Department of Internal Affairs show nationally the amount of money spent on pokies from January to the end of March was down on the previous three months from $220.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 to $203.7 million in the first quarter of 2012. But for the 12 months ended March 2012 expenditure was up 2.3 per cent from $845.9 million to $865.4 million. In Northland pokie players piled $7,767,732 into the machines in the same period, $343,748 less than the previous quarter, but up slightly on the same time a year ago.

Punters in the Far North, with 354 gaming machines, spent the most, $3,655,902; followed by $3,485,297 in 322 machines in Whangarei and $626,531 in the Kaipara's 71 machines.

POKIE MACHINE FACTS

Amount put into pokie machines January to March:

Whangarei: 24 venues, 322 machines (1.79 per cent of national total), $3.485 million.

Far North: 29 venues, 354 machines, (1.97 per cent), $3.655million.

Kaipara: 10 venues, 71 machines (.39 per cent), $626,531.

Source: Internal Affairs.

Where to go for help:

Problem Gambling Foundation: phone 0800 664262 or email help@pgfnz.org.nz.

Nga Manga Puriri: phone (09) 437 0167 or email: tatou@ngamangapuriri.org.nz