Host responsibility

1. Our commitment

Windshore Place Hospitality Limited operates the Windward Room, the gaming lounge on level two of Windshore Place, 74 Oriental Parade, Wellington. We do so under the Gambling Act 2003, and we maintain a host responsibility programme as section 308 of that Act requires. The programme is approved by the Department of Internal Affairs, is reviewed every year, and is available to read in full at the cage or from the duty manager on request — you do not have to say why you want it.

The commitment underneath the paperwork is simpler than the paperwork. Gambling here should be an evening, not a problem. If it stops being entertainment for you, we would rather lose your custom than keep it, and we have trained our staff to act on that rather than to say it.

We would rather you left when you meant to.

2. Age and identification

Entry to the Windward Room and the Beacon Room is restricted to people aged 20 years and over. This is New Zealand law, not a house rule, and there is no discretion in it. It applies to hotel guests, to people accompanied by an adult, and to anyone who only wants to look.

• Photo identification is checked every visit, however often you come and however well the staff know you.
• We accept a New Zealand driver licence, a passport, or a Kiwi Access Card. We do not accept a photograph of any of those on a telephone, an expired document, or a document in somebody else's name.
• Anyone who cannot produce identification is not admitted. Nobody is asked to explain themselves and no record is kept of the refusal beyond the shift log.
• If we believe a document is not yours, we will decline it and we will not argue about it at the door. Ask for the duty manager.
• A person found on the floor who is under 20 is asked to leave, any play is void, and any money staked is returned.

Everything else in the building — the rooms, Roseneath, Chaffers, the Carter, Balaena Spa — is open to guests of any age, subject to the ordinary licensing rules for alcohol.

3. How the room is built

A policy that lives only in a folder is not a policy. Several parts of ours are built into level two, where they are harder to forget:

• No cash machines. There is no ATM anywhere on level two. The nearest is in the ground-floor lobby, two floors down and past the front desk. The walk is deliberate.
• Clocks on every wall, lit, and readable from every table and every machine. There is one directly above the cage.
• The windows are not covered. Eleven metres of north-east glazing looks over the harbour. You can always see the weather and whether it is light outside.
• The room closes at three in the morning, seven days a week. Last entry is 2:30am and the last hand is called at ten to three. Nobody has ever talked us into staying open, and nobody will.
• Drinks are not carried to the machines. If you want one you walk to the bar at the end of the room. It takes fifteen seconds and it is fifteen seconds on your feet.
• Free water, tea and coffee at that bar, all night, without being asked for and without a charge.
• A quiet room off the corridor with two chairs, no screens and a door. Anyone can ask for it, at any hour.

4. What staff watch for

Our staff are trained to notice a short list of things and to act on them. None of it is a judgement about you; it is a list, and it is the same list every shift.

• Play that runs for a long stretch without a break, particularly past midnight.
• Returning to the cage repeatedly in a short period, or leaving to find a cash machine and coming straight back.
• Distress at the table or the machine — anger, tears, striking the glass, someone who has stopped talking to anyone.
• Talking about money that is needed for something else: rent, a bill, a debt, chasing what has gone.
• Asking staff for a loan, or to hold something as security.
• Children left in a car, in the lobby or elsewhere in the building while an adult plays. This one we act on immediately.
• A person who has excluded themselves being on the floor.

5. What happens if we approach you

A staff member will come over quietly, out of earshot of the table, and ask how you are getting on. That is genuinely the whole opening. What follows depends on you:

• If you would rather not talk, we leave it there and note the time on the shift log. Nothing else happens.
• If you want a break, we will walk you to the quiet room or to the bar and bring you something to drink, without charge.
• If you want information, we keep printed cards for the Gambling Helpline, the Problem Gambling Foundation and Need to Talk?, and the duty manager can ring any of them with you or for you.
• If you want to stop coming in, see section 6.
• If a duty manager believes someone is in real difficulty, they can ask that person to leave for the night. That is a power they hold and occasionally use. It is not a ban, and it is not recorded as one.
• We will always arrange a taxi and we will pay for it if getting someone home safely is what the situation needs.

6. Self-exclusion

You can exclude yourself from the Windward Room at any time we are open, and from any staff member — not only a manager, and not only at the desk. You do not need an appointment, a reason, or a good moment.

• It is done confidentially and in writing, in an office off the corridor, and takes about ten minutes.
• We take a photograph with your consent so that door staff can recognise you. If you would rather not be photographed, we can work from the identification you present instead.
• You choose the length: any period from three months to two years, or indefinitely.
• An exclusion order takes effect immediately. Any chips you hold are exchanged before you leave.
• During the order you may not enter level two. The rest of the hotel is unaffected — you can stay here, eat here, swim here, and nothing on your reservation will say anything about it.
• We do not write to you, we do not add you to a list that goes anywhere else, and we do not tell your family, your employer or anyone else. Records are kept only as long as the Act requires.
• An order does not lapse quietly at the end. To come back you must ask, in person, and there is a conversation first. We may decline, and we sometimes do.
• Breaching an order is treated as trespass, which is unpleasant for everybody. Please do not test it.

The Problem Gambling Foundation and the Gambling Helpline can also arrange multi-venue exclusions covering other venues at the same time. Ask them, or ask us to ring them with you.

7. If you are worried about somebody else

Ring reception on +64 4 894 2100 at any hour and ask for the duty manager, or write to [email protected]. We will listen and we will tell you honestly what we can and cannot do.

• We cannot confirm whether a named person is in the building, has been, or what they have done here. Privacy law applies to them as it does to you.
• We can pass on that a family member is concerned, and our staff will approach the person under section 5.
• You can ask us to consider an exclusion order made without the person's agreement. We will assess it, and if we make one we will tell the person it exists.
• We will always put you in touch with the Problem Gambling Foundation, who can support the family whether or not the person wants help. Their support is free and does not depend on the gambler agreeing to anything.

8. Alcohol and gaming

• We do not serve alcohol to anyone who appears intoxicated, and an intoxicated person is not admitted to the gaming floor. This is the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 as much as it is us.
• Drinks are not brought to the machines or to the tables. There is one bar, at the end of the room.
• Free water, tea and coffee are always available.
• Duty managers may stop service to a table or an individual, and may close a table early. They do not need a reason beyond their judgement.

9. Money, credit and cheques

• We do not extend credit for gambling to anybody — not to hotel guests, not to Beacon Room guests, not against a room account. There are no exceptions and it is not a matter of asking the right person.
• Gaming cannot be charged to a room.
• Card purchase of chips at the cage is limited to NZ$1,000 a day per person, by our rule, not the bank's.
• We do not cash third-party cheques and we do not hold personal property as security for anything.
• Staff may not lend money to guests or borrow from them. Doing so is a dismissible matter and has been.
• Winnings above the reporting thresholds are paid and recorded as the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 requires, and identification will be asked for.

10. Staff and training

• Every person who works on level two completes host responsibility training before any gaming qualification, and refreshes it every year.
• Training covers the signs above, how to open a conversation, how to take a self-exclusion, the helplines, and — the part people find hardest — how to do nothing gracefully when a guest would rather be left alone.
• A duty manager holding a current manager's certificate is on the floor whenever the room is open.
• Staff are not paid, bonused or ranked on how much is gambled. No part of anyone's pay here moves with the drop.
• Staff may not gamble in the Windward Room at all, on duty or off.

11. Complaints and the regulator

Tell the duty manager first — most things are settled the same night. If that does not resolve it, write to the general manager at [email protected] or by post to Windshore Place Hospitality Limited, 74 Oriental Parade, Wellington 6011. We acknowledge in writing within five working days and answer properly within twenty.

Gambling in New Zealand is regulated by the Department of Internal Affairs (Te Tari Taiwhenua). You may complain to the Department about a gambling operator at any time, and you do not need to come to us first: dia.govt.nz.

12. Where to get help

All of these are free, and none of them will tell us you called.

• Gambling Helpline Aotearoa — 0800 654 655, free, twenty-four hours, seven days.
• Need to Talk? — 1737, free call or text, any hour, to a trained counsellor.
• Problem Gambling Foundation — 0800 664 262. Free face-to-face counselling, and support for family.
• Text — 8006.
• Māori — Gambling Helpline Māori, 0800 654 656.
• Pasifika — Gambling Helpline Pasifika, 0800 654 657.
• Online — choicenotchance.org.nz and safergambling.org.nz.

Policy reviewed February 2026 · next review February 2027 · Windshore Place Hospitality Limited, NZBN 9429047318856