Wave Passage Hospitality Ltd operates The Motukōkako Room under the Gambling Act 2003 and is required by section 308 of that Act to have a host responsibility policy and to make it available. This is it. It applies to every person on the gaming floor, including staff, including guests of the hotel, and including people the duty manager has known for a decade.
Our position is simple and we would rather state it plainly than dress it up. Gambling is entertainment for most people and a serious problem for a small number of them, and a venue that pretends otherwise is not being honest with anyone. We would rather lose a night’s takings than keep someone at a table who has stopped enjoying being there.
The policy is reviewed every year, and after any incident on the floor. The current version was reviewed in March 2026. A printed copy is held at reception and at the podium in The Motukōkako Room, and either can be handed to you without explanation if you ask for it.
02 — Age: twenty and over, every time
New Zealand law sets the minimum age for casino gambling at twenty. We check photo identification at the door of The Motukōkako Room on every entry, not on the ones where somebody looks young.
- Accepted: New Zealand or overseas passport, New Zealand driver licence, Kiwi Access (18+) card.
- Not accepted: photographs of documents, expired documents, student cards, or a friend vouching for you.
- No identification means no entry. There is no discretion in this and staff are not permitted to exercise any.
- Anyone found on the floor under twenty is removed, and the incident is recorded in the venue log the same shift.
The rest of the hotel — rooms, The Tapeka Room, The Longboat Bar, The Haruru Bathhouse and the event spaces — has no age restriction beyond the ordinary licensing rules that apply to alcohol.
03 — What the room is built not to do
Some of this is required and some of it is ours. We have not marked which is which, because in practice it makes no difference to a person standing in the room.
- No cash machines on the gaming floor, and none in the corridor outside it. The nearest is in the village, three minutes’ walk, and that walk is deliberate.
- Clocks are visible from every table. There are four of them, large enough to read from the far wall. A room with no clocks in it is a room designed to take something from you.
- The room closes at 2am, every night, whether it is full or empty and whether or not anyone objects.
- No credit. We do not lend money, we do not cash personal cheques, and we do not hold anything as security.
- Free water, tea and coffee on the floor at all times.
- No alcohol service to anyone who is intoxicated, and anyone refused service is also asked to leave the tables.
- Signage at the door, at the cage and on every machine carrying the helpline number and the odds of the game in question.
04 — Self-exclusion
If you want to stop yourself coming in, we will help you do that, confidentially and in writing, and we will not ask you to explain yourself.
- Ask at reception, at the podium in The Motukōkako Room, or write to [email protected]. Any of the three works.
- It takes about ten minutes and can be done in the duty manager’s office with the door shut.
- You choose the length, from three months to two years, and it can be extended but not shortened.
- We keep a photograph so that door staff can recognise you. It is held securely, seen only by the people who need it, and destroyed when the order ends.
- While the order runs, you are turned away at the door quietly, without a scene, every time.
- An order can also be issued by us. If the duty manager believes someone is being harmed, they may exclude that person, and that decision is not negotiable at the door.
- Self-exclusion from The Motukōkako Room does not affect your welcome anywhere else in the hotel. You can still stay here, eat here and drink here.
05 — Trained staff
Every person who works on the gaming floor completes host responsibility training before their first shift and a refresher every twelve months. The duty manager on every shift holds a current certificate.
Training covers the signs that matter: someone playing far longer than they said they would, someone going back to the cage repeatedly, someone who has become angry or silent, someone who mentions money they do not have. Staff are expected to approach that person, offer a coffee and a chair away from the floor, and say something. They are explicitly told that a quiet word is never a mistake, even if it turns out to be unnecessary, and no one here has ever been disciplined for making one.
Incidents are logged the same shift. The log is reviewed monthly by the general manager and held for three years.
06 — Where to get help
All of these are free, all are confidential, and none of them are run by us.
New Zealand gambling helplines
- Gambling Helpline — 0800 654 655. Free, twenty-four hours, every day.
- Need to Talk? — call or text 1737. Free, any time, for anything.
- Problem Gambling Foundation — 0800 664 262. Free counselling, in person and online.
- Text 8006 to start a conversation by message rather than voice.
- Salvation Army Oasis — 0800 53 00 00.
- choicenotchance.org.nz · safergambling.org.nz
Help is also available for family members. You do not have to be the person gambling to call any of these numbers.
07 — Advertising, and what we will not do
- We do not advertise gambling to anyone under twenty, and we do not use imagery or language aimed at them.
- We do not suggest that gambling is a way to make money, solve a problem or improve anybody’s life.
- We do not offer bonuses, free credits, matched play or loyalty rewards that depend on how much anyone gambles. The one package on this site that includes gaming credit is a fixed NZ$40, the same for everyone, and it does not grow with what you spend.
- We do not send gambling promotions to anyone who has self-excluded, and we remove them from every list the day the order is signed.
- We do not operate, promote or link to remote or interactive gambling of any kind. Nothing on this website can be played.
08 — Talking to us
If you have a concern about how The Motukōkako Room is run — yours or someone else’s — ask for the duty manager on the night, or write to [email protected] and it reaches the general manager rather than a queue. We answer within two working days.
Complaints we cannot resolve can be taken to the Department of Internal Affairs, which regulates gambling in New Zealand, at dia.govt.nz.