Host Responsibility

1. Age

Entry to the gaming room is restricted to people aged 20 and over. Photo identification is checked at the door on every visit, for guests of the hotel, for people the staff know by name and for anyone else. A New Zealand driver licence, a Kiwi Access card and a passport are accepted; nothing else is.

A person who cannot produce one of those documents is not admitted, and the same applies at the entrance to The Kelvin Room. Anyone found inside without having been checked is asked to leave and the shift is logged.

2. Staff

Everyone rostered onto the gaming floor completes host responsibility training before their first shift and refreshes it every year. Duty managers hold a General Manager’s Certificate. Training covers the signs of gambling harm, how to approach someone showing them, how to arrange an exclusion, and what has to be written down afterwards.

Staff are expected to approach a guest who appears to be in difficulty rather than wait to be asked. That conversation happens away from the table and is not discussed with other guests.

3. The room itself

• There is no cash machine in the gaming room and none in the corridor outside it. The nearest is 300 m away on Shotover Street.
• A clock is visible from every table and from both ends of the machine bank, and the windows are not blacked out.
• The room closes at 2.30am and the door stops admitting people at 2am, whether or not it is busy.
• The cage advances no credit. The hotel does not lend against a room account and does not cash a cheque for play.
• Every machine shows its return-to-player percentage on the glass, and the player information brochures required by the Act sit at the podium and by the cage.
• Drinks service stops at 1am, and no one who is intoxicated is served or allowed to keep playing.

4. Self-exclusion

Self-exclusion is available to anyone, at any time, without a reason being given. Ask any member of staff, speak to the duty manager at reception, or write to [email protected].

• It is put in writing and takes about ten minutes.
• Terms run from six months to two years, and are extended on request.
• A photograph is taken with consent so that door staff can honour it.
• It is confidential to the duty managers and the door staff. It is not mentioned to other guests and not attached to a hotel booking.
• A family member may ask us to consider an exclusion under section 309 of the Act. We will meet them, and we will act where the grounds are made out.
• Breaching an exclusion means being removed from the room. It is not treated as a reason to end a hotel stay.

An exclusion covers The Earnslaw Room and The Kelvin Room. It does not affect a room booking, the restaurant, the bar or the bath house.

5. What we will not do

• Advertise gaming to anyone under 20, or in any material aimed at a general audience.
• Offer credit, loans, markers or an advance of any kind for play.
• Offer inducements to keep playing, or reward the length of a session.
• Run any form of remote or internet-based gaming. No game can be played through this website or on any device.
• Take a booking for the high-limit room from a person who is excluded, here or at another New Zealand venue we have been told about.

6. Getting help

7. Records and review

Approaches, refusals, exclusions and incidents are recorded in the gaming log on the shift they happen. The log is reviewed monthly by the duty managers and is available to a Department of Internal Affairs inspector on request. This policy is reviewed every twelve months and after any incident that suggests it needs changing.

8. Talking to us

Ask for the duty manager at reception at any hour, phone +64 3 409 0612, or write to [email protected]. A written concern is answered within five working days by a person, not a form.