Public Health Association Thursday 23 September 2010, 4:13PM
Media release from Public Health Association
The number of poker machines in a community, and the ease with
which people can get to them, is associated with higher crime in
the surrounding neighbourhood, the Public Health Association
conference was told today.
The initial findings of a three-year research project to understand
and measure harm to communities from gambling were presented to the
conference by Drs Martin Wall and Karen Witten from Massey
University.
"Research in 2008 found that playing poker machines was the type of
gambling that caused the most harm to families but we wanted to
find out about the harm to whole communities.
"How many poker machines there are and how easy it is for players
to get to them appear to be linked to higher rates of crime in the
surrounding community. This seems to have nothing to do with how
deprived the community is.
"We looked at rates of assaults, family disputes, theft and
burglary and found they increased in the areas with the most pokies
and the easiest access to them over those areas with the
least.
"We also found lower levels of social cohesion and a higher number
of food parcels given out by the Salvation Army in areas with a
higher density of machines or less distance to the nearest gambling
venue. Social cohesion was measured by asking people, among other
things, if they felt their neighbours could be trusted and whether
they felt safe when walking in their neighbourhood. Interestingly
we could not make a link between gambling opportunities and debt
levels nor children's welfare."
The next step will be to design ways of minimising harm to such
communities.
The researchers are currently working with community groups and
providers of problem gambling services on the most effective ways
that harm can be minimised. These will then lead to pilot projects
in a number of communities over a two-year period that should yield
useful evidence of 'what works' in this field.