Hastings District Council to Review Poker Machines Decision

On May 2, 2007, the Hastings District Council is considering limiting the number of electronic poker machines that should be permitted in the district. Currently, 381 poker machines are offered in 28 casino facilities in Hastings. Under the Gambling Act of 2003, the council is required to use the Gambling Venue Policy.

The councilors needed discussed whether they want to set the fixed number of poker machines at 381 or adopt a sinking policy that would see the number of poker gaming machines reduced to 5.1 machines per 100 customers or 361 poker machines.

Currently, the population of Hastings is 70,842 people, meaning that the machine ratio is 5.37 per 1000 citizens. The town of Napier has around 7.4 machines per 100 people, while the town of Central Hawke has 6 slot machines per 1000 of its citizens.

The Hastings City Council received 18 comments on their proposal. 10 of those comments support the city council's policy, though they differ in opinion regarding the cap on the poker machines.

A survey conducted on 292 residents for November and December 2006 showed that about 96% of the respondents in the survey thought that the current amount of locations and poker machines was more than enough for Hastings.

83% of the respondents thought that the machine cap of 385 was enough and 13% of the respondents felt that there should be fewer poker machines.

Around 95% of the survey respondents thought that the gambling establishments should have a regulation to control them, with 97% of the respondents said that the poker machines should not be allowed near the facilities in the community, with most of the respondents saying that they prefer that the machines be placed outside the residential home areas.

May 24, 2007
Michael Orwell