"While New Zealand has one of the lowest problem gambling rates in the world we still need to explore better ways to help people who identify or are identified as problem gamblers" said Paul Andrew, part of the consortium to develop the new system.

The Guardian system, developed at the request of the gaming industry, is the result of a partnership between Kiwi companies Torutek and COMS Systems.

It uses ground-breaking facial recognition technology to scan people entering gaming rooms and check their images against a cloud-based voluntary database of problem gamblers. If there is a match, staff at the venue will be alerted within seconds to check the person’s ID and ask them to leave.