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Communities profiting from gamblers' misery
Stevenson's Country, June 22, 2004
By Philippa Stevenson
It took a closely typed, 40-page newspaper supplement to list the $68.9 million worth of grants made to community groups from just five gaming trusts in the six months to March.
It looked impressive and you could imagine groups from the Ahikaa Touch Team ($250) to Worser Bay School ($2500) being delighted with the trusts' beneficence.
"New Zealand is fortunate that charitable trusts operate gaming machines, so all the profits go back to our communities," said the five trusts that operate a third of the country's non-casino pokie machines and have formed the credible sounding but toothless Charity Gaming Association (CGA).
"This is much better than allowing commercial operators to earn millions of dollars of profit from gambling," they advised readers loftily.
But how much better?
Does it matter to the hungry family of an out-of-control gambler who's profiting from their food money?
Does it matter to the suicidal gambler whose pockets their addiction has lined?
Probably not. I doubt very much whether the families know or the gambler cares one whit that some of those hard-earned or stolen dollars poured into pokies will end up providing uniforms for the local touch team or books for the local school library.
A key question, which seems rarely addressed is whether it should matter to all those community groups who, each year line up for the largesse of gaming trusts, that they are profiting from some of the least well off in their communities?
Oh, it's better that communities benefit from the millions gambled away each year rather than some violin case-toting Bugsy Malone.
But the gambling industry/community group equation seems more a skewed case of supply and demand than a solution to society need. At best it is a very haphazard way of funding those needs (and wants), at worst it is profiting from misery.
Just a few weeks before the tabloid trumpeted the trusts' generosity the Herald reported a study that found more than one in six people seen in hospitals for trying to kill or hurt themselves have gambling problems.
Supporting that research is the equally alarming statistic that 7.9 per cent of people calling the Gambling Problem helpline are considering suicide when they pick up the phone.
The harm caused by gambling in New Zealand - personally, financially and on communities - has risen to such a significant issue that from next week it officially becomes a prime health issue. From July 1, the Health Ministry will take over responsibility for funding and co-ordinating problem gambling services from the Problem Gambling Committee, a body made up of representatives of the gambling industry and problem gambling services.
A 1999 Department of Internal Affairs study conservatively estimated that between 22,000 and 50,000 people had some form of gambling problem.
Most problematic of all are non-casino gaming machines - those operated by the gaming trusts in pubs and clubs from sports to RSAs. The five CGA trusts - Lion Foundation, NZ Community Trust, Scottwood Group, Castle Group and the Southern Trust - are in the company of 656 societies or clubs with more than 22,700 pokies in more than 2000 venues.
Eighty-three per cent of people calling the gambling helpline say their main form of gambling is non-casino pokies.
While pokie numbers increased from 7700 10 years ago to today's 22,734, other gambling activity has also increased significantly over that time. Six casinos have opened, the Lotteries Commission started offering new products such as Daily Keno and Powerball, and the TAB introduced sports betting and selling its products over the internet.
Unsurprisingly, the number of people seeking help has matched the growth in betting options. New callers to the Gambling Problem Helpline have more than doubled in the past six years, with 4644 new callers in 2003. The number receiving personal counselling had almost tripled to 2467 by 2002, from 890 in 1997.
Maori have shown the largest increase in people seeking help, and like some bizarre equality contest women with gambling problems have increased by more than 300 per cent to equal men.
What do they spend to enrich the pubs, clubs, gaming machine suppliers and community groups?
In 2002/03, gamblers lost almost $1.9 billion - $941million on non-casino gaming machines.
According to Internal Affairs, gaming machine operators spent $315 million of that $941 million on administration and operating costs.
Some people are hitting the jackpot day after day. But it's definitely not the gamblers and, despite impressions to the contrary, it doesn't appear to be communities either.
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