Machine gaming decision needed

Press, 7 October 1987, Page 4

Machine gaming decision needed

Urgent clarification is needed on whether machine gaming should be licensed or eradicated, according to the Internal Affairs Department briefing papers. Whatever decision was made, it would be ineffective if not resolved speedily. There was public acceptance of the use of these machines and many chartered clubs, sports clubs and the like which used them had found machine gaming a very good fund-raising avenue, the papers said. It was estimated that 10,000 machines were in uSe in New Zealand, and some 95 per cent of these would be illegal one way or another. The papers said illegali-

ties were again creeping into Housie. More important there was a need to address the situation with the smaller Housie groups, as had been done but only to some extent by the new amendments to the Housie Regulations, 1986. There was a need to look further into this problem of the smaller Housie groups, the papers said. But the Gaming and Lotteries Act, 1977, would have to be changed before that could be done. This change could not be done effectively before 1989, and so in the interim it was necessary that there be amended regulations to accomplish at least some leniency for those smaller Housie groups.