SKYCITY welcomes ‘Mystery Shopper’ research on Host Responsibility

‘Mystery Shopper’ research commissioned by the Department of Internal Affairs on Host Responsibility practice across New Zealand casinos, gaming lounges, bars and clubs has been welcomed by SKYCITY.

SKYCITY’s General Counsel, Peter Treacy, says SKYCITY is pleased that overall its staff demonstrated a high level of interaction with its customers.

The research exercise, which used paid “shoppers’’ provided by a research company, took place across the country’s casinos and Class 4 sector. It found staff were visible on SKYCITY’s gaming floors at most times and conducted frequent ‘sweeps’ and interactions with players in SKYCITY casinos in Auckland, Hamilton, and Queenstown.

“Our staff actively engaged with the Department’s ‘Mystery Shoppers’ on a number of occasions, which clearly shows that we are playing our part in providing a safe environment for our customers. Overall the department’s research continues to demonstrate what we have known for some time - casinos remain the safest place to gamble,’’ Mr Treacy says.

Recent Ministry of Health research into electronic gaming machine gambling shows that 56 per cent of presentations to problem gambling counselling services relate to gambling at pubs and clubs. Just eight per cent of presentations relate to casino gambling.

Mr Treacy says the logging of interactions with customers – highlighted in the report – is a subjective area and one that SKYCITY will continue to discuss with the department.

“SKYCITY staff are trained to recognise a variety of indicators to establish whether a player needs assistance. All interactions with customers should be friendly, generic and open-ended to allow customers to make their own declarations about their welfare. SKYCITY considers every interaction our staff have with our customers to be a potential source of host responsibility information.’’

“We also have a variety of other measures in place on the main gaming floor including clocks on gaming machines, game and player information messaging, player interrupt features and the display of signage and other advice relating to problem gambling. Collectively these measures are designed to encourage and facilitate responsible and informed choices around participation in gambling activity, but unfortunately these were not considered as part of this exercise.’’

Mr Treacy said SKYCITY worked very closely with the DIA’s trained casino inspectors who were regularly on site and no compliance issues around host responsibility had been raised by them. “We take our host responsibility role very seriously across our business. The rules and expectations around host responsibility will keep evolving and we will continue to review our policies, procedures and training. It is our commitment to host responsibility on behalf of our customers,” says Mr Treacy.

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