1. Clubs - Gambling Must Only Be Incidental - Section 52A 27.01 Gambling Must Only be Incidental to Other Activity – Clubs and End User Trust 27.02 The Relevance of Gaming Turnover – Section 52A.
  2. New Zealand National Gambling Study Wave 4 (2015) Gambling Harm Reduction Needs Assessment - March 2018 - Sapere Report. Quantifying the Harms of Internet Gambling Relative to Other Gambling Products – Townshend 2011. Economic Impact of Non-Casino Electronic Gaming Machines –Market Economics Limited 2012.
  3. Jun 18, 2018 Gambling has played a major part in the life of New Zealanders for centuries and while gambling in the country has undergone periods of strict regulation in the past, today Kiwis are legally permitted to participate in many forms of gambling including pokies, sports betting, lotteries, and online casinos based outside of New Zealand.
  4. The biggest piece of legislation affecting online gambling in New Zealand is the Gambling Act of 2003. According to the Department of Internal Affairs the primary concern of this law and the licensure regulations that result from it is that the national community benefits from gambling profits and that the government can minimise the harm done by problem gambling.

New Zealand has five casinos of international standard in Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch, Queenstown, and Dunedin. Enjoy the glamour of a night at the casino and the thrill of taking a gamble. Play the machines, try your luck with the dice or test your skill at cards.

New Zealand Gambling Laws on Land

Using overseas gambling sites is fully legal under New Zealand Gambling Law. For reasons these sites operate without restrictions on live-betting, casino and poker, plus pay less tax, they tend to offer much better value than our domestic options TAB and Mylotto. As a professional gambler that moved to New Zealand 4-years ago, this is a topic I know a lot about. OnlineBetting.com has hired me to write this article recommending sources for sports betting, casino, and poker.

If you are in a hurry to gamble online, first understand there are only a handful of reputable overseas gambling sites that support New Zealand Dollar. Because otherwise the money spent in currency conversion fees can add up, I assembled the list below. These are all-in-one gambling sites that offer sports betting, horse racing, poker and casino and also support our currency.

Sites like Bet 365, BetVictor are the most used books in NZ, but others that I recommend would be Ladbrokes or StandJames. Free online bingo games play now.

At the above websites deposits can be made via credit card or Ukash in NZD with no fee. You can also use a NZD Skrill (moneybookers) account to move money between these websites. For taking money off there are many options including bank transfer.

I should stress with emphasis the websites listed are all highly reputable. For example: Bet365 is world’s largest gambling website and operates in dozens of languages and currencies. They’ve been in business since 1974, are based and licensed in the UK, and own the EPL franchise Stoke City FC. The others on the list are also well established bookmakers from the UK. This said, I will now breakdown recommendations and benefits by gambling product.

Online Sports Betting

www.bet365.com is the most popular online betting site in New Zealand. They offer a 100% up to $200 (NZD) initial deposit match as a cash bonus. This is unlike other bonuses found on the web as most are free plays and risk free bets. Here you deposit $200 and start with $400 (the bonus is cash). The only catch is prior to making a withdrawal you need rollover your deposit + bonus a very reasonable three times.

Understand there is much more to Bet365 than just the bonus. The first major factor is they offer betting on the sports and leagues that New Zealand competes in. This includes Super Ruby, the ANZ Championship for Netball, our Football Championship (soccer), plus ITM Cup and Heartland Championships for cricket. For basketball both version of National Basketball League (NBL) are offered – New Zealand, as well as Australian which our own team the Breakers has been the most dominate team in their league. Of course tennis, golf, and many other competitions held in NZ are available too.

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As Bet365 is truly a global site no matter what sport or league you are looking to bet these can all be found. IPL cricket from India, La Liga or English Premier League football, Australian Rules, all Rugby League and Rugby Union matches are just some of the many examples. Even if you want to bet something as remote as third division volleyball from Brazil or football from Iran (extreme examples) you can find both here. The coverage is truly second to none and I stress betting is offered on sports all over the world, even Bangladesh cricket can be found.

Spot Betting, In-Play and Streams

For New Zealand sports Bet365 offers many spot bets. For example, for a cricket match of 1ST ODI England vs. New Zealand you can find to win the match, to win the toss, man of the match, top batsman, top bowler, highest opening partnership, most match sixes, team to make higher 15 over score, first over total runs, will a half-century (50) be scored, will a century (100) be scored, first wicket method, runs at the fall of the first wicket, most run outs, batsman matches, race to ten runs and other markets.

Our own domestic website tab.co.nz offers many of these markets but there are two differences. 1) On average Bet365 has better odds and 2) Bet365 offers these and dozens of other markets live-in play. This is also not just for cricket. Bet365 offers in-play and many spot bets on other markets too. They even have live streams and have more ways to bet the Breakers playing hoops, and any football, cricket, tennis or volleyball match than any other website on the net.

Promos, Bonuses and Shopping Odds

What I covered in this section is only a small sample of what is available with Bet365. It is wise for punters to use many different betting sites in order to take advantage of promotions and bonuses. At Bet365 you will see they have accumulator bonuses that effectively shatter the odds TAB offers on multiples. They also have a bore draw refund for football. However, other betting sites offer promos too. For major matches BetVictor often runs stake back specials. By using multiple betting sites you can shop the odds and take advantage of promos at each, hence getting the most value on each and every punt.

Horse Race Betting

Horse Racing is another area the overseas bookmakers crush Tab. These sites offer best odds guaranteed for most races. At Bet365 you are allowed to pick 2 major totes. You can bet on fixed odds and if the dividend is declared higher by one of the selected totes you get the higher payout. At BetVictor you will find a plethora of free bet promos, increased each way odds, and stake back promotions on horse racing. This is an area you can simply navigate the website of each bookmaker to find the many promos on offer and then keep these in mind when making tips.

Online Pokies

Pokies are the most popular form of gambling in New Zealand. According to DIA, at the close of 2012 there were 17,670 such machines spread across 1,381 venues. These did $9.245 trillion in turnover that year for $854 billion in net win by our country’s pokie machine owners [source]. Using our entire population of legal age (18+), that was about $256 (NZD) in losses each. What is even more interesting is the turnover figures indicate machines kept 9.24% and paid 90.76%.

While payout percentages for online pokies (commonly called slots or slot machines) are more difficult to find, they do exist. For example, Bet365 is audited by TST. That report shows their slots (pokies) paying 95.33%. This is much higher than 90.76% found in New Zealand. Although this is a snapshot of just one particular month, most all TST audit reports involving major UK based gambling sites show pokie payout percentages of 94%-97%.

These figures do not even tell the full story about how much better value overseas gambling sites offer for pokies than our domestic machines. The reason why is: online gambling sites have many bonuses and promotions. An example of two opening account offers for online pokie players are listed below:

  • www.bet365.com – 200% up to $400 (USD) Slots bonus. In other words: deposit $200 and get $400 free – brining your starting account balance to $600. If accepting this bonus you’ll need to rollover deposit+bonus 30 times prior to cashing out.
  • www.betvictor.com – wager £500 and get £25 free, wager another £1,500 and get £50 free and then wager £3,000 and you will receive another £100 – making a total bonus of £175 FREE!

Note: At both Bet365 and BetVictor – when entering the casino your balance will be converted to the proper currency, when you exit it will be converted back to NZD.

These promotions are only the tip of the iceberg in the value offered. There are also reload bonuses and VIP programs for earning comp points redeemable for cash and other rewards. There is also a much wider selection available. Most online casinos have video slots based on movies and TV shows, matches to the popular games found in our RSA clubs, traditional slot machines and their own unique creations. Playing these – it will be very easy to see the value that can be found online greatly exceeds what can be found at pokies spread across New Zealand.

New Zealand Gambling Law Guide 2017

Online Casino

In New Zealand we have 7 casinos which in 2012 generated $509 billion (NZD) in net gambling win. Much of the same I discussed about pokies applies to table games as well. While the games are the same, and in most cases so are the odds, overseas online casinos offer many bonuses and promotions. Most games are life-like, and in some cases the online games actually are being played live with human dealers.

www.bet365.com offers live dealer games for blackjack, roulette, baccarat and sic-bo. These have a human dealer (often quite attractive) working at a dealer studio. They use physical gaming tables and perform all the actions over web-cam. Players place their bets online while watching live streams of the game and can even communicate with the dealer as if they were actually there sitting in the casino.

There are also many traditional computer generated games too. You can find blackjack, craps, roulette, casino war, Caribbean Stud, Texas Hold’em Bonus, and countless other games at each overseas online casino offering New Zealand Dollar accounts. Again, due to bonuses and promotions these offer far better value than our brick and mortar casinos.

Online Poker

All the sites listed earlier in this article have large online poker rooms. This is one gambling product I actually personally prefer to use sites that do not support New Zealand dollar. The reason for this is far softer games. For example www.betonline.ag is an American friendly online gambling site – however they’ve been in business for a long time and are reputable. As most of their poker players are sports bettors with no poker experience you’ll find the games here are incredibly soft. Of course if you prefer to deal with reputable companies www.pokerstars.com is an option as are all the NZD gambling sites mentioned near the top of this article.

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The industry has been severely re-regulated from 1 July 2004. A limit on casinos has been imposed (no new casinos). Although no statutory limits have yet been placed on gaming machine numbers, territorial local authorities have been given the power to regulate numbers and locations in their areas. As a result, many have introduced 'sinking-lid' policies and others capped number policies.

Our team has been involved in the past on applications for casino licences and is currently advising on gaming machine licensing related matters. We advised Pub Charity which was granted the first gaming machine licence in New Zealand in 1988.

We currently advise Endeavour Foundation, Infinity Foundation, The Trusts Charitable Foundation, Grassroots Trust and the Upper Hutt Cosmopolitan Club, all of which own and operate gaming machines. We also advise grant recipients.

Areas of expertise include compliance advice, amending licences, applying for licences, advising on legislative changes, making submissions on new legislation, liaising and negotiating with the Department of Internal Affairs and appeals to the Gambling Commission.

New Zealand Gambling Law Guide

(click here to view online) peer reviewed by Alastair Sherriff

Representing gaming machine societies

in challenges to Department of Internal Affairs proposals to suspend licences, cancel site approvals due to dual/multi-site location and/or due to “primary activity” issues and on other claimed legislative breaches

Obtaining a new gaming machine licence

in place of two previous licences, to ensure compliance with the Gambling Act

Assisting charitable societies

Guide

convert to not-for-profit companies in order to make grants for non-charitable purposes

Advising class 4 operators and their staff

on Department of Internal Affairs, Office of the Auditor-General and Audit New Zealand audits, investigations and inquiries

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New Gambling Laws In Florida

Alastair Sherriff

Consultant, Wellington

Alastair specialises in advising public and private sector clients on employment, health and safety at work, education, alcohol licensi…

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