Online bookmakers in New Zealand: who actually takes your bet

Updated October 2026

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The short answer at the centre of this comparison is older than the offshore betting sites that fill sidebars next to it. In New Zealand the only provider lawfully offering racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand is the TAB NZ group, and it has been the only one since an amendment to the Racing Industry Act 2020 took effect on 28 June 2025. Two brands sit on that side of the line, TAB and Betcha. Everything reviewed here that is not one of those two brands is, by statute, a brand that has no right to take a New Zealand customer’s bet, regardless of how polished its signup form looks. The angle of this page is consequence: what the law follows from for the punter, what the offshore brands cost you in lost protection, and what the operator’s own terms actually promise behind the marketing wording. Currency-stamped against the Department of Internal Affairs register and the operators’ own current terms as of October 30, 2026.

What the law actually changed on 28 June 2025

Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, inserted by the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025, draws the line in straightforward terms. No person other than TAB NZ may offer racing betting, sports betting or other racing or sports betting to a person in New Zealand, wherever that person is resident or wherever the operator is incorporated. The change took effect on 28 June 2025, and the Department of Internal Affairs told providers serving New Zealand to withdraw with immediate effect. There is no licence to apply for and no licence register for bookmakers, because there is only this one lawful provider. The law does not geo-block offshore websites. It puts the liability on the offshore operator.

That distinction matters more than it first sounds. New Zealand punter, betting through a phone or laptop, will see many of the offshore brands still accepting deposits the morning after the cut-off. They are doing so without a New Zealand right to do it. The Department of Internal Affairs’ published warning is the practical sentence for the player: overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins. There is also a stable of consumer-protection features a New Zealand-licensed account comes with that the offshore brands do not bind themselves to: a regulator who can compel information, a complaints framework, age-verification standards, harm-minimisation tools, and exclusion registers where they exist.

The point that travels. Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, inserted by the same package of reforms, says an individual cannot be convicted for placing a bet with an offshore betting operator in breach of section 74AAA. No published penalty for a player was found. So the safe way to write the position is this: New Zealand law targets the operator; the regulator warns players of the risks; no published player-side penalty exists. To write that betting offshore is illegal for the player is to overreach the statute. To call it legal is to misread it. The honest framing is the one above.

Who is in, who is out, on this page

In this comparison, the two lawful brands (TAB and Betcha) are presented first, as members of the same group rather than rivals, because that is what they are. The other eight brands (Millioner, Rabona, Thunderpick, BillyBets, RTbet, Spinbara, 22Bet and Alawin) are listed for reference because New Zealand players meet them, and each is explicitly marked “not licensed in New Zealand”. They are rated on the same criteria as the lawful two, and the difference between a licence that protects you and an offshore terms page that does not is left for the reader to weight as they choose.

The law has a smaller companion point worth covering before the rest of the comparison. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 licences online casino gambling only, and does not extend the betting monopoly. TAB New Zealand winning the right to apply for a casino licence does not change who takes a sports bet. Casino games and sports betting are separate permits under separate regimes, and a casino limit is never a betting limit. Greyhound racing is closing in stages from 1 August 2026, and from that date offshore operators may not take bets on greyhound races either. That is not a softening of the sports-betting prohibition; it is a narrower additional layer of it.

Player protection on the lawful side

Age, identity and account opening

Betting under 18 is an offence under section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020; land-based casinos in New Zealand set a different bar at 20, and that casino rule is never confused with the betting rule. TAB NZ accounts need a verified New Zealand address and identity, which the operator’s onboarding flow enforces before the first deposit clears. The TAB NZ app in the New Zealand App Store carries a 17+ age rating while stating that customers must be 18 or over to bet. Two separate checks: the store-rating system and the betting-eligibility law. Both apply.

Tools and exclusion

TAB NZ publishes safer-gambling tools directly in its app: deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion. A self-exclusion applies across both brands, TAB and Betcha, because the two share one account system. There is no single national online-betting exclusion register; the register the 2026 casino law will require covers online casinos only, not sportsbooks. TAB NZ must keep the risks of problem and underage gambling minimised, and pays a Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74%, in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028. Help sits outside the operator: the free Gambling Helpline at 0800 654 655, text 8006, and Safer Gambling Aotearoa.

What offshore platforms bind themselves to is harder to answer uniformly. Some publish self-exclusion tools and cooling-off periods and honour them. None of them binds itself to New Zealand’s harm-minimisation framework, because none of them is licensed here. If a punter has a complaint about an offshore brand, there is no New Zealand body to escalate it to. The brand’s own dispute process is what runs.

Bonuses, free bets and what they actually cost

Search interest in “best online bookmakers sign up offers”, “online bookmakers bonus” and “online bookmakers free bets” lands on this page knowing that almost none of the offshore brands listed below can lawfully offer those offers to a New Zealand resident. For completeness, the shape of the offers they advertise is described here, with the line that matters clearly stated: a bookmaker that has no right to take your bet is the wrong address for any of these offers, regardless of headline size.

How a “100%” offer reads in plain numbers

A first-deposit offer that doubles the deposit up to a stated cap is, in arithmetic, a credit of that cap’s worth of bonus money once the deposit clears. The reading almost no signup page encourages is the next one. The offer’s actual value depends on how the bonus is paid out (real money or bonus money), the minimum odds the qualifying bets must reach, the time window for clearing, and which markets count toward turnover. An offer of EUR 100 matched has a true cost the page works through below in rough terms; offer of 100% up to 200 USDT for a sport crypto welcome carries the same structure plus the exchange-rate layer a New Zealand customer crosses twice if they convert.

The clearance cost on average

The cost of clearing a bonus, on average, is what an experienced punter actually compares. A bookmaker’s margin on the markets it offers sets the average haircut on each dollar that turns over. A margin in the high single digits across the main football and racing markets, multiplied by the turnover the offer requires, is the typical scale of the cost the offer imposes on the punter who clears it for the sake of the bonus. The cost does not show on the offer page. It comes from the markets, the minimum odds and the stake-by-stake interaction.

For offers whose small print is not established in the inputs (the wagering multiple, the minimum price for a qualifying bet, the deadline, the cap on free-bet winnings), a punt rule applies: read the operator’s own terms page before claiming, since the headline figure and the actual cost live in different documents.

What TAB NZ actually offers to a new customer

TAB NZ publishes its new-customer offer as Bonus Cash that can be split across multiple bets. The published product list also names a Mega Multi bonus of up to $50 in Bonus Cash when a multi of four or more legs falls short by a set number of legs, terms and conditions apply. Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, one-tap Popular Multis, and a Place Extra option that lets punters back runners to finish up to 10th in selected races are part of the same product set. These are TAB NZ’s own wording, not a paragraph borrowed from the offshore bookmakers below.

What an offshore welcome offer can promise but cannot lawfully deliver here

Spinbara’s English site advertises a first-deposit bonus of 100% up to EUR 100, alongside a sport crypto welcome bonus of 100% up to 200 USDT and a casino welcome bonus of 100% up to EUR 500 plus 200 free spins. None of those offers is lawful for a New Zealand-resident customer because of section 74AAA, regardless of how prominent the casino or sportsbook banner is. The numbers are stated because the question of “what does the offshore brand offer” is asked often; the legality is the next sentence, not the next paragraph.

New bookmakers and the appearance of freshness

Search traffic for “newest online bookmakers”, “online bookmaker new zealand” and “online bookmakers new” lands on brands that have launched recently in absolute terms. What “new” means in this market is not the same as what it means in a market with twenty licensed bookmakers chasing fresh signups. In New Zealand, a brand that is new and holds no New Zealand status is not a fresh lawful option. The novelty is a real-world launch, but the launch runs offshore; the legality question is decided by section 74AAA, not by the brand’s launch date.

A worked example from the off-shore eight. Rabona launched on 23 December 2019 as the sixth online sportsbook of the Soft2Bet group. Its age has nothing to do with its standing in New Zealand: it holds no NZ right to take a bet. Thunderpick is owned and operated by Paloma Media B.V., a Curaçao company, under Curaçao licence OGL/2024/677/0722. A Curaçao licence is the standard offshore credential; it grants no right to take bets from a person in New Zealand. SpinBetter is owned by Sprut Group Limitada in Costa Rica under licence ALSI-202607036-FI2. Baji runs under an Anjouan licence held by Northern Lights Limited in the Union of Comoros, and Roobet under a Curaçao licence held by Raw Entertainment B.V. The pattern across the offshore eight is uniform: Curaçao, Anjouan, the Comoros, Costa Rica. None of those licences covers New Zealand.

What “new” buys a punter

A new offshore brand often buys a New Zealand punter two things that a longer-established brand does not always offer: more generous headline bonus numbers, and slicker onboarding. Both have a flip side. Headline numbers come with harder clearance and tighter markets, and slicker onboarding pairs with thinner support when something goes wrong. Neither of those is unique to New Zealand, but the comparison here is uniquely pointed because the lawful alternative is one group, not dozens, and many of the features a punter looks for live in that group without the bonus arms race. The consequence the angle of this page draws out: novelty is an offshore feature the law has already excluded the punter from accepting.

How the ten operators compare on the same criteria

What follows is the comparison block the reader came for: ten brands, four matters each, the lawful two clearly separated from the eight that cannot lawfully serve a New Zealand resident. TAB and Betcha are members of the same group and are never pitched against each other. The eight offshore brands are rated on the criteria the comparison sets, and the difference in legal standing is the leftmost column. Place matters an operator’s terms page refuses to publish in plain figures carry the no-data marker rather than a guessed number.

The columns are kept narrow on purpose. The leftmost column is the one that decides everything else for a New Zealand punter, and it does so as a matter of statute rather than as a column of subjective scores. The second column carries what the operator’s own current terms publish as their headline offer, since describing offers qualitatively is a rule this page follows instead of printing working codes. The third column is a check the reader can do themselves: open the operator’s own terms page or app listing and confirm what the fourth column says it confirms, because that is the document the regulator (or, offshore, the operator itself) will hold the punter to.

A note on what the table does not show. The eight offshore brands sit in a regulatory frame that does not cover them; their Curaçao, Anjouan, Comoros and Costa Rica credentials govern disputes through their own channels, not through the New Zealand system. Bonuses, where shown, are the operator’s own published figure on the operator’s own English site at the time of writing. None of the cells in this table guarantees the punter anything about a New Zealand right to bet, because for the offshore eight there is no such right to guarantee.

Operated by whom, regulated by whom: the brands in detail

TAB

TAB is one of the two online brands of TAB NZ, the only provider lawfully offering racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand since 28 June 2025. There is no licence register for bookmakers because there is only this one lawful provider. The TAB NZ app covers horse and harness racing, rugby union, rugby league and other sports, pre-match and in-play. The product set spans fixed-odds and tote markets, Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, one-tap Popular Multis and a Place Extra option that lets punters back runners to finish up to 10th in selected races. Trackside live race streaming with in-app betting, racing form, Blackbook and Jockey Challenge tools, and a simplified wallet for deposits and withdrawals round out the product list.

The operator behind the brand is Entain New Zealand. The TAB business runs under a 25-year partnership signed in 2023 that gives Entain a 50/50 share of gross profits, with at least $150 million a year going to TAB NZ for the first five years; Entain also pledged a one-off $100 million payment to the racing sector. That is the structure under which Bonuses, fixed-odds prices and the dividend on tote markets are set, and it is the reason this brand is the only sporting answer to the comparison.

The verdict: the lawful bookmaker for racing and sports in New Zealand, with the only New Zealand harm-minimisation framework, regulator oversight and complaints route attached to a sportsbook. The product set is narrower than a large offshore bookmaker’s, which is the trade-off the monopoly imposes on the punt.

Betcha

Betcha is the second online brand of TAB NZ, and the relationship matters: the two share one account, one wallet and one self-exclusion. Betcha was first released on the New Zealand App Store on 6 August 2024 under seller name Entain New Zealand Limited, and is positioned as the digital-first cousin of TAB. From the punter’s point of view, Betcha is the same group in a younger wrapper; the offer, the prices, the safer-gambling tools and the customer-support routes do not differ, and there is no advantage to switching between them on odds grounds.

What is worth knowing about Betcha specifically is its product emphasis. The brand targets the punter who wants a mobile-led experience and the same markets as TAB but a more modern interface. For a New Zealand resident, the comparison between TAB and Betcha is not a comparison at all; it is a choice of packaging.

The verdict: useful as the alternative front door for the lawful bookmaker; for a New Zealand punter, identical in legal standing, account and harm-minimisation tools to TAB. The differentiator is the app, not the offer.

Millioner

Millioner runs without a licence that applies in New Zealand; section 74AAA disqualifies it from offering racing or sports betting to people in New Zealand regardless of what its license page elsewhere says. The brand’s own published terms apply Customer Due Diligence checks when anti-money-laundering triggers are reached and accept customers aged 18 and over only. The two facts together describe a brand that behaves like a regulated operator under its own jurisdiction’s rules, and is not bound by New Zealand’s.

The verdict: useful as a reference for what the offshore bookmaker average looks like in its own terms; not a New Zealand option, no New Zealand complaints route, no local harm-minimisation framework. A punt inside New Zealand disqualifies the punter from the rules the brand does follow.

Rabona

Rabona is the sixth online sportsbook of the Soft2Bet group, launched 23 December 2019. The brand names a Curaçao licence, which gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand. This is one of the established offshore brands and sits comfortably among the comparison: product set is broad, primary sports are football and the major overseas leagues, and the marketing targets a European and Latin American customer base.

The verdict: a long-standing offshore brand by launch date, which is the wrong thing for a New Zealand punter to read as a New Zealand endorsement. The age of the brand is unrelated to its standing under section 74AAA.

Thunderpick

Thunderpick is owned and operated by Paloma Media B.V., a Curaçao company with company number 146988, licensed by the Curaçao Gaming Authority under licence number OGL/2024/677/0722. The brand’s headline identity is crypto-led esports betting alongside a sportsbook. New Zealand punter, looking past the site’s imagery, will find that a Curaçao licence still does not cover a New Zealand-resident customer.

The verdict: the bookmaker to consider on esports and crypto rails, but the New Zealand-resident block stands; what the licence gets the punter in a Curaçao dispute is what the licence gets the punter, full stop.

BillyBets

BillyBets offers New Zealand in its country selector on its cashier page, and the only currency filter shown on the page is Euro. The contradiction is important: the brand advertises to New Zealand residents while running on a currency that is not theirs and a licence that does not cover them. The brand names no licence that applies in New Zealand. A New Zealand punter who opened an account, deposited in Euro and tried to withdraw winnings will navigate a payment chain across at least one FX conversion, on the operator’s terms, with no New Zealand body to escalate to if the chain breaks.

The verdict: the clearest case of an offshore brand openly marketing into New Zealand while having no legal right to take a New Zealand bet. The country selector confirms the marketing pull, the Euro filter confirms the only settlement option. Neither of those is a protection.

RTbet

RTbet covers football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football and baseball in its sportsbook, with live betting and virtual sports included. The brand names a Curaçao licence that gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand. The product set is broad enough to be a reasonable comparison for a punter who plays across multiple sports; the New Zealand position disqualifies the use of it.

The verdict: a useful reference point for breadth of markets and live-betting coverage among the offshore set. Statutorily not a New Zealand option, with the usual consequence of no local complaints route.

Spinbara

Spinbara advertises a first-deposit bonus of 100% up to EUR 100, a sport crypto welcome bonus of 100% up to 200 USDT, and a casino welcome bonus of 100% up to EUR 500 plus 200 free spins. The figures are stated because the comparison is asked of them; the consequence of being named here is that the offer cannot lawfully be claimed by a New Zealand resident regardless of which of the three packages it is. The brand names no licence that applies in New Zealand.

The verdict: the strongest offer-by-numbers in the comparison, offset by the strongest statutorily-excluded position. The arithmetic that makes the bonus look large and the statutory frame that makes it inaccessible do not cancel each other out.

22Bet

22Bet’s address 22Bet redirects to the operator’s site; the site carries a copyright notice for 2017 through to the current year and a 21+ age notice, neither of which alters its non-coverage of New Zealand under section 74AAA. The brand names a Curaçao licence (8048/JAZ) held by TechSolutions Group N.V. Twenty-one as an age threshold is one year above the New Zealand betting rule of eighteen and the New Zealand land-casino rule of twenty; both of which still do not apply, because the comparison is over whether 22Bet may take a New Zealand bet at all, which it may not.

The verdict: a long-running offshore brand with a broad product set, disqualified from lawfully serving New Zealand residents; useful as a comparison reference for product breadth, not for legal standing.

Alawin

Alawin accepts customers aged 18 and over only, and names no licence that applies in New Zealand. The brand is the most straightforward of the eight in stating its own age requirement and the most straightforward in its silence on a New Zealand licence; both are accurate as far as they go, and neither alters section 74AAA.

The verdict: a clean statement of an offshore brand’s own terms, unconnected to the New Zealand lawful framework. Compared with TAB and Betcha, the same age requirement under a New Zealand licence has regulator backing it; the same age requirement under an offshore terms page is just the page’s word.

How to read this comparison if you are a New Zealand punter

Pick the lawful option if you want the regulator, the complaints route and the harm-minimisation tools the statute attaches to your bet. Pick the lawful option if you want to be sure your win is paid. Pick the lawful option if you want to bet through the gaming duty framework New Zealand maintains on TAB NZ and on overseas operators where applicable, knowing the operator side of that frame pays into New Zealand’s revenue either way.

The offshore option exists in the comparison as a record of what is offered and what it costs to clear, not as a route. New Zealand residents who attempt to use the offshore brands run on those brands’ terms, with the trading rules those brands write and the dispute routes those brands’ licences create. None of those is the New Zealand dispute route; none of those is the New Zealand harm-minimisation framework. The consequence of using an offshore brand from in New Zealand is the absence of New Zealand protection, which is what the comparison turns on when the leftmost column is read carefully.

One practical filter that does not need a betting background: if a brand’s terms page lists a deposit method, a withdrawal method and a complaint procedure that all live in another country, the punter inside New Zealand has chosen to leave the protection offered at home. The cleanest test of whether to act on that choice is to ask, on the operator’s terms themselves, who pays the punter when the operator decides it will not. The two lawful brands answer that question through a New Zealand regulator; the offshore brands answer it through their own licensees, in jurisdictions this page does not pretend to police.

The other things that surround the bet

Tax

For the player, Inland Revenue’s published guidance says recreational gambling winnings are generally not taxable, and prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is not taxable. A person who bets as a business is a different case, and this page is general information rather than tax advice. The hobby-scale punter does not owe tax on winnings; the business-scale punter is advised to consult Inland Revenue or an accountant. Operator-side, TAB NZ pays the Problem Gambling Levy at 0.74%; overseas operators supplying New Zealand residents pay an online gambling duty, currently 12% of profits since 1 July 2024 and rising to 16% from 1 January 2027. That the duty is payable does not make the offer lawful, and the page does not write the duty as evidence of legality. The point-of-consumption charge on offshore racing and sports bets ceased on 30 June 2026.

Advertising

TAB NZ’s own advertising sits inside the Advertising Standards Authority’s Gambling Advertising Code. Ads must not target children (under 14) or young people (14 to under 18), judged by context, appeal and expected audience (25% or more of the audience counts as significant where accurate data exists), must not encourage harm, and must be truthful with terms available. No New Zealand equivalent of a “whistle-to-whistle” ban for betting advertising was found. The offshore brands are not covered by this code and pursue their own.

Payments

No statutory payment rule for betting accounts (card, bank, credit, prepaid, crypto) was found. TAB NZ’s deposit methods and limits are operator-level and come only from its terms; they are not generalised here. Nothing states a rule on crypto or VPN use; TAB NZ’s onboarding requires a verified New Zealand address. The Department of Internal Affairs’ warning, repeated from earlier, is the right framing: overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins.

Frequently asked questions

Which bookmaker may lawfully take sports and racing bets in New Zealand?

TAB NZ’s two online brands, TAB and Betcha, are the only providers lawfully offering racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand under section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, in force since 28 June 2025. There is no licence to apply for and no register of bookmaker licences because there is only this one lawful provider.

How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?

Return is the stake multiplied by the decimal odds. A $10 stake at odds of 2.10 returns $21, which is the $10 stake back plus $11 in net profit. For a combination bet, the legs’ odds multiply to a single price before being applied to the stake.

What is the bookmaker’s margin and how can it be seen in the odds?

The margin is what the bookmaker keeps of every unit bet on a market, calculated as 1 minus the payout share. Payout share is 1 divided by the sum of the reciprocals of the odds across all outcomes of one market. A market with outcomes priced at 2.10, 3.40 and 3.60 sums to roughly 1.05 in reciprocals, so the margin is around 5%; a market with outcomes priced at 1.90, 3.20 and 4.00 sums closer to 1.10, and the margin is around 10%. Margins vary by market and by bookmaker.

What does a player lose by betting with a bookmaker that has no New Zealand licence?

The player loses the regulator who can compel information, the New Zealand complaints framework, the harm-minimisation tools that the lawful operator binds itself to under licence, and the practical certainty that a large win will be paid under New Zealand consumer-protection standards. Section 74AAA targets the offshore operator; the Department of Internal Affairs warns that overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards and may not pay out large wins.

From what age can bets be placed with TAB NZ, and what is checked when opening an account?

Betting with TAB NZ requires the customer to be 18 or older; placing a bet under 18 is an offence under section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020. Account opening requires a verified New Zealand address and identity, with age confirmation routed through that identity check before the first deposit clears.

Are betting winnings taxed in New Zealand?

Recreational gambling winnings are generally not taxable for the player, and prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is not taxable. A punter who bets as a business is a different case, and Inland Revenue or an accountant is advised to be consulted on that. Operator-side levies and duties are the operator’s, not the player’s.

What about betting exchanges, esports and novelty markets?

No lawful New Zealand betting exchange exists. Spread betting sits outside TAB NZ’s sports-betting definition, so it is not established as lawful here either. Bets on politics and novelty markets are not established in statute. Virtual sport (computer-simulated events) is treated by the 2026 online casino law as casino gambling. Whether esports betting counts as “sports betting” under the Racing Industry Act is not established, which means a TAB NZ market on a Counter-Strike fixture sits in a grey zone this page does not pretend to resolve.

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