Host Responsibility

1. What this policy covers

It covers The Rimu Room, the single gaming room at Red Timbers, 118 Dyers Pass Road, Cashmere, Christchurch 8022, Canterbury, New Zealand. That room holds 34 gaming machines and 6 tables and is open midday to 3am, seven days. It is the only part of this building where gambling of any kind takes place.

Red Timbers Hospitality Ltd holds the venue licence. Gaming here is regulated by the Department of Internal Affairs under the Gambling Act 2003. Nothing on this website, and no service offered by this hotel, allows a person to gamble remotely, online, by telephone or through an application. There is no account to fund and no stake that can be placed anywhere except at a table or a machine inside that room.

2. Age: 20 and over, checked every visit

Entry to The Rimu Room is restricted to people aged 20 and over. That is not our preference, it is New Zealand law, and there is no version of it we bend for a hotel guest, a wedding party or a regular.

The door is staffed whenever the room is open. Anyone who appears to be under twenty-five is asked for photographic identification: a New Zealand driver licence, a passport, a Kiwi Access card or an equivalent overseas photo licence. A hotel key card, a bank card and a claim to have left the wallet upstairs are not identification. A person who cannot produce it does not come in, and the staff member who turned them away is supported in that decision without exception.

Where a person under 20 is found in the room, they are removed at once, the incident is written into the gaming log with the time and the staff member’s name, and the duty manager reviews how they got past the door.

3. How the room is built and run

Several decisions about the room exist only to make it easier to stop:

• There is no cash machine in the room, in the corridor outside it, or anywhere on the ground floor of this hotel. The nearest one is at the shops 2.1 km down the hill.
• No credit is extended, no cheque is cashed and no advance is made against a hotel room account. The room account cannot be used to buy chips or credits.
• A clock is fixed where it can be read from every table and every machine, and the room has windows, so the time of day is never a mystery.
• The room closes at three in the morning and the closing time does not move for a busy night, a full house or a guest who asks.
• Free water, tea and coffee are available in the room. Alcohol is not served in it and no drink is carried in from The Bridle Path Bar.
• Signage at the door and at the cage carries the helpline numbers in section 8, in a size that can be read without leaning in.

4. Staff, training and the duty manager

Every person who works in The Rimu Room completes host responsibility training before their first shift and refresher training every twelve months. The training covers the age rules, the signs of harm, how to open a conversation with somebody who is showing them, and how to process an exclusion without making a performance of it.

A duty manager is on site at all times the room is open and their name is on the board at the door. They hold the gaming log, the exclusion list and the authority to close a table or ask a person to leave. No member of staff needs to seek permission to check identification or to raise a concern.

Staff do not gamble in this room, on duty or off it.

5. Noticing harm, and what we do about it

Staff are trained to watch for the recognised signs of gambling harm: long unbroken sessions, agitation or distress, returning repeatedly to find more money, playing through meals a guest has paid for, asking to borrow from staff or other players, complaints from family, or a person saying plainly that they cannot stop.

When it is seen, a staff member approaches quietly and away from the table. The conversation is offered, not forced. It might end with a coffee and a break, with the helpline card, with an application to be excluded, or with nothing at all — but it is had, and it is recorded in the log whatever the outcome. Where a person is at risk of serious harm, the duty manager may require them to leave the room and may refuse entry for a period.

Anybody may raise a concern about somebody else — a partner, an adult child, a friend. Contact the duty manager on +64 3 337 4180 or write to [email protected]. We cannot discuss another adult’s activity with you, and we will not pretend otherwise, but we will act on what you tell us.

6. Exclusion, by you or by us

If you ask. Any person may ask to be excluded from The Rimu Room. The request is made to the duty manager, put in writing on a one-page form, and takes effect immediately. You choose the term, between three months and two years. The order is confidential: it is held by the duty manager and the door staff, it is not shown to other guests, and it is not attached to your hotel booking record.

An exclusion cannot be lifted early. That is the point of it. At the end of the term it lapses unless you renew it, and nobody from this hotel will contact you to suggest that you should.

If we decide. The venue may issue an exclusion order where a person is causing harm to themselves or to others. It is given in writing, with the term and the reason on it.

A person under an exclusion order who enters the room is asked to leave and any stake is returned. We do not treat it as a matter for the police unless there is a separate reason to.

7. Advertising and inducements

We do not advertise gambling to the public, we do not promote The Rimu Room outside this building beyond describing what it is, and we do not use gambling to sell rooms. Where a stay package includes gaming credit it is stated in plain figures, it is issued only on the premises against photo identification, it is not issued to anyone under 20, and it is not issued to anybody on the exclusion list.

There is no loyalty scheme, no points, no tiers and no membership. Nobody is telephoned, emailed or messaged to invite them back to the gaming room.

8. Where to get help

These numbers are also on the door of the room, at the cage, in the corridor and in the footer of every page of this website. Help is free whether or not you are a guest here, and calling one of them costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

9. Complaints and the regulator

Complaints about how this policy was applied go to the duty manager first, and then in writing to [email protected]. We answer within five working days and we keep the correspondence for two years.

If the answer does not satisfy you, the Department of Internal Affairs is the regulator for gambling in New Zealand and takes complaints about licensed venues directly. Nothing in this policy limits your right to go to them first.

This policy is reviewed every twelve months, and after any incident that shows it needs to change sooner.