More money has been pumped into Dunedin and Invercargill poker machines and less in those in Queenstown Lakes, figures show.
More than $12.5 million was spent on pokies in Otago and Southland for the three months ending June 30, a decrease of $550,000 on the previous quarter.
However, bucking that trend was Dunedin, which despite losing one venue and 21 machines, recorded a $112,878 increase in expenditure to more than $4.565 million.
Also recording rises were Invercargill (up $330,342 to $4,131,867), Clutha (up $5472 to $494,850) and Gore (up $103,145 to $883,354).
The largest drop in expenditure in the region came from Queenstown Lakes (down $125,637 to $672,195), followed by Central Otago (down $95,549 to $822,564) and Southland (down 74,650 to $830,855).
National spending increased from $199.9 million the first quarter of this year to $209.8 million for the June 30 quarter.
Despite the quarterly increase, pokie spending decreased for the third year in a row - falling 10% since June 2007.
Expenditure in the country's 1455 venues was $849.2 million at June 30, compared with $889 million for the previous year.
Also declining during the same period were numbers of pokie machines (down 3%), venues (down 3%) and licence holders (down 4%).
