Culprits say illegal housie way to ease the boredom

By BRIDGET CARTER

Inside a box-style house on Jack St, Internal Affairs investigators found housewives playing illegal housie.

They saw cars spilling out of the driveway, lights flickering from a window behind a fruit tree in the darkness and heard the sound of numbers being called within.

Behind the walls were ticket dabbers, a number counter, more than $250, super housie tickets and people engrossed in an illegal game of chance.

No 9 Jack St was one of two places in Whangarei where up to 50 people gathered for secret games of housie, played underground by many suburban middle-aged women from Whangarei.

The women behind the games were solo mothers and housewives.

Judge Christopher Field convicted Lucy Takimoana, aged 47, Charmaine Rawiri, 35, and Fiona Marie Paul, 40, of charges related to operating an illegal game of chance in the Whangarei District Court.

He asked the women to forfeit the $303.25 found by Internal Affairs staff to the Crown after taking into account that they had insufficient incomes to pay fines and, with children, they were unable to do community work.

The women were caught at 7.50pm on May 30 last year.

A fourth person has denied charges related to operating an illegal game of chance and is due to appear in court later this year.

When police and Internal Affairs investigators searched Lucy Takimoana's tiny cream house, Charmaine Rawiri was inside calling numbers for a housie game organised by Fiona Paul.

Housie games went on there every Tuesday and Thursday, according to one of the women, and that night people were squeezed inside to fundraise for a family unveiling.

A woman called Sara was there when the housie game was raided by police.

Women were perched at tables in rooms everywhere, she said, but when police knocked on the door, they all just scattered.

For the past 10 years home housie was going on throughout the neighbourhood, she said.

"There are a lot of middle aged women in Otangarei with no job who just come play housie. It is something for them to do."

At a nearby address almost two months later, police and Internal Affairs raided more illegal housie games where Fiona Paul was the caller.

The games, said the mother of eight, were a way of fundraising for young and elderly locals to get driver's licences.

Eight games were played at that address that night, each at a cost of 50c. Prizes ran up to $10.

Although the stakes were low, the numbers involved were high: nearly 30 people hoped to pick up a small prize.

Internal Affairs spokesman Vince Cholewa said games such as housie played without a licence took money away from legitimate community fundraising opportunities.

But regular housie player Sara, who did not want to give her full name, said it was expensive to get permission to hold housie games, and many in the area had now stopped, which was a shame.

People went to housie to drink, eat and socialise until about midnight, when the games wound up.

"For me, it is a way to unwind after a day," she said.

"If you are lucky, it is cool."

Housie rules

Housie and other forms of gambling are required by law to be licensed.

People caught running illegal games of chance could be fined up to $4000.

Internal Affairs says money raised from housie and other non-casino gambling is meant to be used for community purposes.