Smoking ban in pubs and clubs across New Zealand have significantly reduced the number of people going for gambling.
The Clubs New Zealand president Brian Smith said that the poker machine revenue fell 28%. He also said that this would reduce about $60 million a year from pub charities to various sports and other community groups. Problem Gambling Foundation clinical director Philip Townshend has found that calls received by the gambling helpline also reduced drastically from 42% to 28%. According to the statistics it was found that 58% of the gamblers smoked daily and the ban reduced this drastically.The other factor which aided in the reduction of the number of gamblers is the new gambling act which came in to effect in 2003. This reduced the number of gambling machines by 50%. It also banned the installing of these machines in other new venues. New regulations have also banned the usage of notes carrying bigger denominations and also strict orders were issues about the new pop up messages every half-hour advising how much gamblers had won or lost and asking if they wanted to continue. All these have drastically reduced gambling in New Zealand.
