Host responsibility

Version 4 · reviewed 12 March 2026 · next review March 2027

1. Our commitment

Tidal Veranda Hospitality Limited operates one gaming venue: The Rangataua Room, on level two of the hotel at 112 Marine Parade, Mount Maunganui. We hold the obligations that come with that under the Gambling Act 2003 and the regulations made under it, and we are audited against them by the Department of Internal Affairs.

Our position is simple. A night in the gaming lounge should cost about what a good dinner costs and be over by a reasonable hour. Where that stops being true, we would rather lose the revenue than have a guest lose something they cannot afford. Staff here are not paid on gaming turnover, and no member of staff has ever been asked to keep a guest at a table.

2. Age — twenty and over, without exception

Nobody under the age of 20 may enter The Rangataua Room. Not to play, not to watch, not to pass through on the way to somewhere else, not accompanied by a parent. This is a legal requirement and it is the one rule that has never been bent for anyone.

• Photo identification is requested at the door of anyone who appears to be under 25. In practice our staff ask most people, most nights, and nobody minds.
• Accepted identification: a New Zealand driver licence, a passport, or a Kiwi Access Card (formerly the 18+ card). Photographs of documents are not accepted.
• Where age cannot be established, entry is refused. There is no appeal to a manager, because the manager will say the same thing.
• A person who supplies false identification, or who assists a person under 20 to enter, is removed from the venue and may be trespassed from the hotel.

The badge on every page of this website — 20+ · R20 — and the age question shown when you first arrive here are part of the same commitment.

3. How the room is built

Some of what follows is unusual, and all of it was deliberate when the hotel was rebuilt in 2012.

• There are no ATMs on the gaming floor. The nearest cash machine is in the hotel lobby, past the front desk — a walk of about ninety seconds, which is exactly the point of putting it there.
• Clocks are visible from every table and every bank of machines. They show real time, and they are checked.
• The room has windows. They face Pilot Bay. You can see the tide, the light, and the weather, which most rooms of this kind take some trouble to prevent.
• The room closes at three in the morning — two on Sunday through Thursday — every night, whatever is happening at the tables. Closing time is not extended for anybody, on any occasion, including New Year's Eve.
• Water, tea and coffee are free and always available. Alcohol service stops thirty minutes before closing.
• We do not offer credit, cash cheques, hold personal property against a debt, or permit lending between guests on the floor. There is no circumstance in which we will lend a guest money.

4. Our staff

Every member of gaming staff completes host responsibility training within one month of starting and refreshes it annually. Duty Managers hold a current General Manager's Certificate and one is on site at every hour the room is open.

Training covers the signs that a night has stopped being fun: long unbroken sessions, returning repeatedly to the cash machine, playing on after saying they would stop, visible distress, anger at the machines, asking to borrow. Staff are trained to approach quietly, in a way that does not draw the attention of the room, and they are explicitly authorised to do so without asking a manager first.

Every such approach is recorded in the venue log with the time, what was observed and what was said. The log is reviewed monthly by the General Manager and is available to the Department of Internal Affairs.

5. Self-exclusion

Any person may exclude themselves from The Rangataua Room. It is free, confidential, and takes about ten minutes with the Duty Manager.

• The request must be made in writing, on our form, which the Duty Manager will bring to a private office rather than fill in at the desk.
• You choose the length: six months, twelve months, two years, or a longer period by agreement. Two years is the longest we issue as a matter of course, and it is renewable.
• We take a photograph with your consent so that door staff can recognise you. It is held securely, seen only by staff who need it, and destroyed when the exclusion ends.
• An exclusion cannot be cancelled early. If you change your mind on the second day, the answer is no, and that is the whole value of the arrangement.
• Excluded guests remain welcome in the hotel — the restaurant, the bar, the spa, the rooms. The exclusion applies to one room on level two, not to your holiday.

We can also issue an exclusion order ourselves where we have grounds to believe a person is experiencing serious difficulties with gambling. This is done in private, in writing, and the reasons are explained.

To begin, speak to any member of gaming staff, ask at reception for the Duty Manager, or write to [email protected] and we will arrange a time that does not involve standing at a desk.

6. Advertising and inducements

We do not advertise gambling outside the venue in any way that targets people under 20, and we do not use imagery suggesting gambling brings wealth, status or success. We offer no inducement to play: no matched play, no free play, no joining offer, no loyalty tier, and nothing that rewards a longer session.

Where a hotel package includes gaming credit, it is a single fixed amount issued once, on arrival, at the cashier's desk, to a guest aged 20 or over who has shown photo identification. It cannot be increased, converted to cash, transferred, or carried over. A guest who would rather not have it may take the equivalent off the room rate instead.

7. Where the money goes, and what we watch

Machine and table data is reviewed monthly against the previous year. Where a single guest's pattern of play changes sharply — in frequency, in session length, or in stake — the Duty Manager is notified and a conversation follows. This is not a marketing trigger and it is never used to offer anybody anything.

8. Free, confidential help

None of the services below are run by us. All of them are free, all are confidential, and none of them will tell us that you called.

• 0800 654 655Gambling Helpline — free, 24 hours, seven days
• 1737Need to talk? — call or text free, any hour
• 0800 664 262Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand
• Text 8006Free text support, any hour
• 0800 862 342Gambling Helpline — Māori
• 0800 545 288Gambling Helpline — Pasifika

Online: choicenotchance.org.nz · safergambling.org.nz · pgf.nz

Family and friends can call the same numbers. Most of the calls the Gambling Helpline takes are not from the person gambling.

9. Regulator and complaints

Gambling in New Zealand is regulated by the Department of Internal Affairs (Te Tari Taiwhenua), which licenses and audits venues, and to which any person may complain about how a venue is run — including this one.