.9K per machine
New Zealanders lost NZ$843.5 million (US$595.5 million) to electronic gaming machines for the year that ended in June, even though there were 1,500 fewer slot machines in the country than in 2012, reports the Asia Gaming Brief. That means each of the country’s 16,250 machines won about $51,900 during the period.
Salvation Army Manager Daryl Wesley says many more punters are seeking help for gambling problems. “In the last six to eight weeks, we have seen more people walk in off the street seeking support for problem gambling than we had seen in the six months previous to that,” he told the New Zealand Herald.“Pokie machines are kind of seen as the crack cocaine of gambling.”
Peter Adams of the Auckland University Centre for Addiction Studies says the high rates of compulsive gambling will not change “until community groups and the government say we are not comfortable accepting money from problem gamblers. That’s highly unlikely because people are very invested in it. People have come to rely on funding from that source.”
Earlier this year, the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs reported that local gamblers spent nearly NZ$2.1 billion in 2015, an increase of 1.2 percent.
