'Time to stand up': Researcher says Pacific communities need to find better solutions to gambling harm

Pokie machines raked in over $20 million in profits from Ōtara-Papatoetoe, Manurewa and Māngere-Ōtāhuhu during the last three months of 2023.

And to understand why, Pacific Mornings spoke with Dr Edmond Fehoko, a senior lecturer in the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Otago, who is the leading Pacific researcher when it comes to understanding what’s driving gambling harm for Pacific communities.

Fehoko, who spoke to Pacific Mornings’ William Terite, says one of factors driving this damaging behavour is the high concentration of pokie outlets in South Auckland.

“My current project at the moment in terms of gambling is exploring where the gambling harm is actually located and then see what the providers are doing but also where the providers are located and see whether the support is actually matching the harm that's taking place in our communities.”

Using Ōtāhuhu as an example, Fehoko highlights that this suburb has six venues with gaming machines within a 500m radius of each other, while a service provider to help problem gamblers is 10km away “where there’s no accessibility for park”.

“It's a suburb that's already got fast food outlets, you’ve got alcohol stores, you’ve got baking stores, that's quite prolific around the area. And then we're adding to the issues [with all these gaming venues].”

Fehoko also asks the pertinent question about where the profits from these machines end up.

“Does that $20 million does eventually go back to the suburbs … like Ōtāhuhu, Māngere, Papatoetoe and Ōtara? Or does it increase or help all these other richer suburbs get richer?

“I think our Pacific communities are unaware or uneducated to understand that the money that's going into these pokie machines actually does not go back to these communities unless you put in an application for funding.

“[Instead] you've got sports clubs in Remuera and the North Shore region who are [getting] extra monetary income to support their sports clubs as a result of the gambling behaviors of our Pacific communities in South Auckland.”

However Fehoko says it’s also important Pacific communities look to their own for the solutions.

“I go back to the importance of our community, we as a community, particularly our church leaders, need to stand up and address this issue and understand that gambling may be the core issue to why all these other social issues exist in our communities.

"[It] creates all these other issues that take place like domestic violence, alcohol consumption, all that kind of stuff exists as a result of, [or] … as a direct result of gambling of behavior.

"We need to start looking at how we can prevent and minimise harm within our communities as Pacific people instead of relying on methods that have not worked for people over the past 30 years.”

Watch the full interview below with Dr Edmund Fehoko: