Auckland councillor calls for greater regulation on gambling

Auckland councillor Josephine Bartley has seen first-hand the destructive impact of problem gambling, RNZ reports, and is calling for changes to the way the pokie machine industry is regulated. Bartley is the deputy chairperson of the council’s regulatory committee and grew up in Māngere, south Auckland. “My mother was a chronic problem gambler and we lost our family home because of it,” she said. A report to the Auckland Council’s regulatory committee in 2020 found more than half the people seeking treatment for pokie machine gambling addictions were from south Auckland.