Legal betting in New Zealand in 2026: what the law lets a punter do, and what it does not

Updated October 2026

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26 October 2026 · Verified against the Department of Internal Affairs guidance on the Racing Industry Act 2020.

Most countries have a list of licensed bookmakers. New Zealand has, in practical terms, one. Since section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 took effect on 28 June 2025, TAB NZ and its sister brand Betcha are the only operators allowed to offer racing and sports betting to a person in New Zealand. That is the whole of the legal market. Every other sportsbook a New Zealand player meets — and they do meet them, in their socials, on football sites, on streaming overlays — sits outside it. The Department of Internal Affairs states plainly that those offers are unlawful here, even if the website itself runs from Curaçao or Anjouan.

That single sentence is the answer to the question most readers come in with. The longer one is what it costs a punter to take one path or the other: what the monopoly buys you in harm-minimisation and dispute routes, what an offshore brand keeps from you, and where the law actually lands. This guide lays those out, then compares the two TAB brands against ten names a New Zealand reader is likely to come across, and finishes on the practical side, the safer-gambling tools, the betting-tax position and the questions readers actually ask.

Fundamentals: how the New Zealand betting market is built

The structure is not what most readers expect. There is no Sportsbook Register, no application form for a bookmaker licence, no second-tier remote licence for an offshore operator wanting to take bets over the internet. The Racing Industry Act 2020 names TAB New Zealand as the only lawful provider, and the 2025 amendment closes any gap.

Two pieces of law do the work. The Gambling Act 2003 sets the wider gambling framework and the Department of Internal Affairs as regulator; the Racing Industry Act 2020 then carves out a single operator for racing and sports betting. A second Act, the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026, will run an online casino licensing regime in due course, but it touches casinos only. It does not open sports betting, and it does not let TAB NZ into a casino licence automatically — a separate process applies. Conflating the two is the easiest mistake a reader makes: a brand that is “licensed in New Zealand” as a casino is, on the betting side, no different from any other offshore name.

What may be bet on is racing and sports. Inside racing, TAB NZ takes bets on thoroughbred, harness and greyhound meetings. The greyhound part is closing: the Racing Industry (Closure of Greyhound Racing Industry) Amendment Bill passed on 2 April 2026 and shuts commercial greyhound racing from 1 August 2026. After that date, neither TAB NZ nor any offshore bookmaker may take bets on New Zealand greyhound races — the racing code itself disappears from the programme.

Inside sports, TAB NZ’s published rules cover a familiar set of bet types: head-to-head, line betting (handicap), totals, win and place on racing, plus the multi-market structures (Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie, Big6) that are the everyday vocabulary of New Zealand punters. A “Same Game Multi” leg-stack is in the apps. Live betting is in the apps. A spread-betting venue or a betting exchange licensed in New Zealand does not exist, and writing one into this picture adds something the law does not provide.

The bookmaker that takes the bet is not quite the company the punter thinks of either. Entain runs the TAB business under a 25-year agreement signed in 2023. Entain and TAB NZ split gross profits 50/50, with TAB NZ receiving no less than NZ$150 million a year for the first five years; Entain also paid a one-off NZ$100 million into the racing sector as part of the deal. The platform a New Zealand punter uses has the TAB brand front of house; the engine room sits offshore with a London-listed operator. The punter still bets with TAB NZ, which is the holder of the lawful right to take the bet — and that is what the regulator and the dispute framework reach.

Statute: what the law says, what the regulator enforces

The Department of Internal Affairs is the regulator. The statutory text doing the work is section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, inserted by the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025 and in force since 28 June 2025. In plain English: no person other than TAB NZ may offer racing betting, sports betting or other racing or sports betting to a person in New Zealand, regardless of where the offeror or the punter is resident or incorporated. The Department of Internal Affairs told operators serving the New Zealand market to withdraw with immediate effect.

The law has a sharp edge and a soft one. The sharp edge is on the operator. An overseas company taking bets from a person in New Zealand is breaking New Zealand law. The Department of Internal Affairs warns players about a specific set of risks: that an overseas operator may sit in a jurisdiction with weak consumer protection, may not address gambling harm, may not return unspent credits, and may not pay out large wins. None of that is hypothetical framing; it is the Department’s stated basis for the prohibition.

The soft edge is on the player. Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, inserted in 2025, 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. The right word is that New Zealand law targets the operator, warns the player, and creates no offence a player can be charged with. Writing that betting offshore is illegal for the player, or legal for the player, is one claim too far in either direction.

What the law does not do is also worth knowing. New Zealand does not block bookmaker websites at the network level. There is no payment-blocking order and no published bank obligation to refuse gambling transactions. The prohibition works through the operator, not the connection. A reader who can reach an offshore site can place a bet there; whether to do so is a question of risk, not of access. The risk is that the law a New Zealand punter can fall back on is the law of Curaçao, Anjouan, Tobique or wherever the brand holds its licence — and the operator-level complaints routes are the only routes that exist.

A second silence matters: there is no statutory deposit ceiling, no per-bet cap, and no central exclusion register for betting in New Zealand. The casino regime the 2026 Act will build is for online casinos only. TAB NZ sets its own limits through its terms. The closest thing to a national instrument is the Problem Gambling Levy, a 0.74% levy on TAB NZ’s betting revenue in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028, which funds harm prevention and treatment — the money is real, the register is not.

Safeguards: what the monopoly buys a punter in player protection

The reason the monopoly exists is harm minimisation, and the mechanism that delivers it is TAB NZ’s own framework, not a state-run one.

On the safer-gambling side, TAB NZ’s apps include deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion. A self-exclusion applies across both TAB and Betcha — the two brands are one account group for harm purposes, and that matters when a punter who has excluded themselves is wondering whether they can slip through on the second brand. They cannot. TAB NZ also lists the free Gambling Helpline (0800 654 655) and the text line (8006) for anyone who wants to talk.

Account opening at TAB NZ requires a verified New Zealand address and identification. That is the price a punter pays for the framework that the law puts around the bet: a regulator that knows who is betting, a dispute route that runs through the Department of Internal Affairs, and a problem-gambling levy that funds treatment.

Offshore returns none of this. There is no New Zealand complaints route that reaches an Anjouan or Tobique licence holder; there is no harm-minimisation tool the New Zealand regulator can compel; there is no levy paid into the New Zealand treatment system; there is no protection for an unspent balance if the operator walks away. The Department of Internal Affairs names all four of these in its public warning. A reader who treats an offshore brand as a TAB substitute is making a choice the Department has specifically asked them not to make, and the only honest summary is that the choice is theirs to make, with the warnings on the record.

On the tax side, Inland Revenue’s published position is that 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; the standard line — consult Inland Revenue or an accountant — applies. On the operator side, TAB NZ pays the Problem Gambling Levy (0.74%); an overseas operator supplying New Zealand residents pays online gambling duty (12% of profits since 1 July 2024, rising to 16% from 1 January 2027). A duty being payable does not make the offer lawful, and writing that an offshore brand “pays tax in New Zealand so it must be legal” reads the statute backwards.

The choice in front of a New Zealand punter

There are two paths on the page. They differ on more than whether the bet is lawful.

The lawful path: TAB NZ, through either of its two online brands. The bet is on a regulated platform. Disputes run through the Department of Internal Affairs. Safer-gambling tools (deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion) are in the product. Winnings are paid in New Zealand dollars to a New Zealand bank account. The cost is the limitation of the product: TAB NZ does not match the sports-market depth of a global sportsbook, does not run the kind of casino-style mini-gameplay an offshore brand bundles in, and does not price itself as the highest-margin book in town. The brand is the only lawful option and behaves like the only lawful option.

The offshore path: one of ten brands this guide reviews. The bet may be unlawful on the operator’s side and is not unlawful on the player’s. The product is the global sportsbook: deeper markets, more sports, the casino-style mini-games that the TAB NZ apps do not carry, and a payment menu that often includes cryptocurrency. The cost is everything the lawful path provides: no New Zealand regulator, no New Zealand dispute route, no harm-minimisation tool a New Zealand authority can compel, and the Department of Internal Affairs’s named set of risks on unspent balances and unpaid wins.

There is no third path. A casino brand licensed in New Zealand under the 2026 Act will not be a betting brand by virtue of that licence. A “licensed in New Zealand” badge on a sportsbook landing page is, in this market, a marketing line — and a misleading one, because no New Zealand betting licence exists for a foreign sportsbook to hold.

Shortlist: how the brands in this comparison line up

The comparison below scores ten brands against the same four criteria: New Zealand status, licence, market depth and safer-gambling tools. TAB and Betcha come first because they are the only lawful option; the rest are offshore brands a New Zealand reader meets, marked “not licensed in New Zealand” because no New Zealand judicial licence exists for any of them to hold. They are not ranked against each other — they are not the same kind of brand as TAB NZ, and the score they get on lawful status cannot be lifted by anything else they do.

A note on the table: the “New Zealand status” column is a regulatory fact, not a product score. Every row after TAB and Betcha carries the same regulatory status. Where the brands differ is on product — and on the fact that, in the New Zealand market, “not licensed in New Zealand” is the first thing to read, not the last. The depth of the catalogue is real; the licence is, from a New Zealand punter’s point of view, irrelevant to whether the bet is lawful, and a Tobique number is not a substitute for the Department of Internal Affairs.

Assessment: TAB and Betcha, the two lawful brands

TAB

TAB is the longer of the two TAB NZ brands and the one most New Zealand punters grew up with. It carries the racing book (Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Doubles, Trebles, Quaddie, Big6) and the sports book (head-to-head, line, totals, multi and Same Game Multi). Live betting is in the product. The mobile app is the everyday entry point for most punters.

What TAB buys is the lawful status: the bet sits under the Racing Industry Act 2020, the operator is TAB New Zealand, the regulator is the Department of Internal Affairs, the dispute framework reaches them, the harm-minimisation tools are in the app, and a self-exclusion applies across the account group. TAB also pays the Problem Gambling Levy, which funds treatment through Safer Gambling Aotearoa. None of this is fluff — it is the practical answer to “what does my $10 bet get me that an offshore brand does not.”

What TAB does not buy is the deepest market on the internet. TAB NZ is a regional bookmaker with a New Zealand product, not a global sportsbook. A punter looking for an obscure handball league, an esports market priced in New Zealand dollars, or a same-game multi with ten legs will find more choice offshore. The cost of using TAB is that constraint. The benefit is the framework.

Betcha

Betcha is the second TAB NZ brand, set up under the same TAB New Zealand licence, and aimed at a younger punter. The product is the same TAB NZ racing and sports catalogue presented in a different wrapper. The mobile-first interface and the design language are the obvious ones; the betting rules, the markets and the harm-minimisation tools are the TAB NZ ones.

A punter who already has a TAB account cannot treat Betcha as a way around a TAB self-exclusion: the exclusion applies across both brands. That is a feature, not a bug — it is the one detail that most needs spelling out because it is the detail a self-excluded punter is most likely to test. The brand, the betting markets and the wager types are otherwise interchangeable with TAB. Choosing between them is mostly a question of which interface a punter prefers to spend their evening in.

Criteria: how the offshore brands in this comparison score

The same four criteria that frame the lawful brands apply, and the same score on lawful status applies to every offshore brand in the table. The differences are on the other three.

Market depth. The offshore brands carry deeper catalogues than TAB NZ — football, ice hockey, American football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, rugby, baseball, plus live betting, virtual sports and the casino-style product the TAB NZ apps do not carry. That is real depth. A punter whose interest is in European football, North American basketball or esports will find more markets offshore than they will on TAB.

Licence that applies in New Zealand. None of them. Curaçao, Anjouan, Tobique — none of those licences gives a brand the right to take bets from a person in New Zealand. Section 74AAA is not a permission to take a bet with a foreign licence book; it is the prohibition of doing so without TAB NZ. The licences on the brand’s terms page govern the brand’s relationship with its own regulator, not with the Department of Internal Affairs.

Safer-gambling tools. The offshore brands in this comparison do not publish a New Zealand-specific set of harm-minimisation tools that the Department of Internal Affairs can compel. Some carry their own deposit limits and self-exclusion; the limits they carry are operator-level and enforced by an offshore support team. That is not the same product as the TAB NZ self-exclusion that applies across both TAB brands and sits under New Zealand regulator oversight. The differences in this column are not small.

Payments. The offshore brands generally take a wider payment menu than TAB NZ, including cryptocurrency. That is a feature of the product, and it is also a feature of the regulatory distance: the wider the menu, the harder the New Zealand framework is to apply. The Department of Internal Affairs’s named risk on overseas operators not returning unspent credits sits most directly on this point.

The verdict on the offshore set is the same on every brand: a New Zealand punter who uses one does not get the lawful-market protections TAB NZ provides, does get the deeper product, and is making a choice the Department of Internal Affairs has specifically asked them not to make. The legal exposure is on the operator, not the player. The practical exposure — an unpaid win, an unreturned balance, a dispute with no New Zealand route — is on the punter.

What an offshore brand looks like up close

FunBet

FunBet’s sportsbook covers football, ice hockey, American football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, rugby and baseball, with live betting and a product positioned as open around the clock. It is an offshore brand without a New Zealand licence; it sits in the same regulatory space as every other name in the table. A punter who uses it gets the catalogue, and gets none of the New Zealand framework.

Rabona

Rabona launched on 23 December 2019 as the sixth sportsbook of the Soft2Bet group. It carries the Curaçao licence the group uses. The depth is the same depth as the other Soft2Bet sportsbooks, the New Zealand status is the same as every other row in the offshore set, and the practical question for a punter is the same: catalogue, framework, or both.

RTbet

RTbet’s catalogue covers football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football and baseball, with live betting and virtual sports. It also runs on the Soft2Bet group platform under a Curaçao licence. The practical difference from Rabona is the brand wrapper, not the regulatory situation.

Sportaza

Sportaza’s footer names an Anjouan licence (ALSI-202606064-FI2) while its terms cite a Tobique licence (No. 0000067). The dual-listing is common in this segment; neither licence applies in New Zealand, and the practical effect on a punter is the same as any other offshore brand.

Rooster

Rooster is operated by Novatrix SRL, a Costa Rica company (registration number 3-102-893958) under Tobique Gaming Commission e-gaming licence No. 0000002. It is a sportsbook-and-casino product on the Novatrix platform. The licence does not give it a right to take bets from a person in New Zealand, and the brand is not regulated by the Department of Internal Affairs.

RoyalistPlay

RoyalistPlay sits on the same Novatrix SRL / Tobique licence as Rooster. Same registered company, same Costa Rica address, same Tobique e-gaming licence (No. 0000002), same product shape. The two brands are interchangeable on regulatory standing and on the practical question of whether a New Zealand punter has any New Zealand recourse.

Winz

Winz names Anjouan and Tobique licences in its footer, with Novatrix SRL as the operating entity behind several of the brands on this comparison. Crypto-friendly product. The licence does not reach New Zealand, the regulator does not reach the brand, and a New Zealand punter is in the same position as with any other offshore name on this page.

Spinbara

Spinbara advertises a sports welcome bonus and a separate casino welcome bonus on its English-language site — a sportsbook plus casino-style product. The brand does not name a licence that applies in New Zealand, the New Zealand status is the same as every other offshore row in the table, and the practical question is the same: catalogue and no New Zealand framework, or TAB NZ and the framework.

What the choice costs in numbers

What does a bet cost a punter in margin, in expected loss, in the everyday maths of a monthly budget? The figure depends on the market. TAB NZ and the offshore brands price at different margins on different sports, and the only honest way to put a number on this is to set an example.

Take an illustrative monthly budget of NZ$500, staked once across an illustrative two-way market priced at decimal odds of 1.90 / 1.90 — the kind of price a close favourite or a near-even outsider sits at. The “payout share” of a market is 1 / (1/odds₁ + … + 1/oddsₙ) summed over every outcome; with two outcomes at 1.90 each, that is 1 / (1/1.90 + 1/1.90) = 1 / (0.5263 + 0.5263) = 1 / 1.0526 = 0.95. The bookmaker’s margin on this market is 1 − 0.95 = 5%, meaning 5 cents of every dollar staked is retained on average across all outcomes. A NZ$500 turnover on a 5% market is an expected loss of NZ$500 × 5% = NZ$25, before any promotion or bonus bet changes the picture. The expected loss is a band — it depends on the market a punter picks and the price that market sits at — and it is the honest measure of what an even-money bet on a global sportsbook costs a New Zealand punter over the course of a month.

The same monthly budget staked on a market priced at 1.85 / 1.85 produces a payout share of 1 / (2/1.85) = 1 / 1.0811 = 0.925, and a margin of 7.5%. A NZ$500 turnover on a 7.5% market costs NZ$37.50 in expected loss. A market priced at 1.95 / 1.95 produces a payout share of 1 / (2/1.95) = 0.975 and a margin of 2.5%, costing NZ$12.50 on the same NZ$500. The spread is the spread between a deep market with thin prices (closer to the 1.95 end) and a niche market with wide prices (closer to the 1.85 end). The point is the same: the bookmaker’s margin sits inside every price, and a punter who bets NZ$500 a month is paying the margin on every bet they place.

The expected loss is the cost in cold numbers. A “free bet” promotion softens the number on the promotion’s lifetime; a turnover requirement on a deposit bonus reverses the softening if the wagering factor is high enough that the bonus’s expected loss exceeds its face value. The mechanism is the same on TAB NZ and on an offshore brand; the difference is the framework a punter falls back on when something goes wrong.

Where a New Zealand punter can get help

A punter who feels their betting is getting out of hand has a small, well-defined set of routes in New Zealand, and a much narrower set than most countries.

The free Gambling Helpline (0800 654 655) and the text line (8006) are the everyday entry points. Safer Gambling Aotearoa is the harm-prevention service funded in part by the Problem Gambling Levy TAB NZ pays. Self-exclusion at TAB NZ is in the app and applies across TAB and Betcha. The Department of Internal Affairs is the regulator, and a complaint about a TAB NZ product has a New Zealand route to it; a complaint about an offshore brand does not.

There is no national online-betting exclusion register, and the register the 2026 online casino Act will set up is for casinos only. A punter who has self-excluded from TAB NZ has not self-excluded from an offshore brand; they have to do that on each platform, against each platform’s own tool, with no guarantee the offshore platform honours it. That is one of the costs of the offshore path and one of the reasons the Department of Internal Affairs’s warning reads as it does.

Frequently asked questions

Are offshore betting sites legal?

New Zealand law targets the operator, not the player. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, in force since 28 June 2025, makes it unlawful for a person other than TAB NZ to offer racing or sports betting to a person in New Zealand; an offshore brand taking a New Zealand bet is breaking New Zealand law. Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003 says an individual cannot be convicted for placing such a bet, and no published penalty for a player was found. The Department of Internal Affairs names the player-side risks: an offshore operator may not return unspent credits, may not pay out large wins and may sit outside any New Zealand harm-minimisation framework. The safe summary is that offshore betting is unlawful for the operator to offer, is not unlawful for the player to place, and is not framed as a safe alternative by the regulator.

How is betting on horse racing legal?

Racing betting is legal in New Zealand when it is placed with TAB NZ, under the Racing Industry Act 2020. TAB NZ takes fixed-odds and tote (pool) bets on thoroughbred, harness and greyhound meetings. From 1 August 2026, commercial greyhound racing closes under the Racing Industry (Closure of Greyhound Racing Industry) Amendment Bill passed on 2 April 2026, and from that date there is no lawful greyhound betting market in New Zealand. The bet types available — Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four and the multi-race structures — are defined in TAB NZ’s published betting rules.

Is any online sports betting legal?

Yes — through TAB NZ, on its TAB and Betcha brands. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 names TAB NZ as the only operator allowed to offer online sports betting to a person in New Zealand. Any other online sportsbook a New Zealand reader meets is, in the words of the Department of Internal Affairs, breaking New Zealand law by offering those bets. A New Zealand-licensed casino under the 2026 online casino Act is a casino licence, not a sports-betting licence, and does not change the position on sports betting.

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

TAB New Zealand, through its two online brands TAB and Betcha. There is no licence register for bookmakers because there is only one lawful provider; there is no application route for another sportsbook to take a New Zealand bet, and there is no second-tier licence for an offshore operator to apply for. The full answer to “which bookmaker is licensed in New Zealand” is the same on this page as it is on the regulator’s page: one operator group, two online brands, no others.

Are TAB and Betcha two different bookmakers?

No. TAB and Betcha are the two online brands of TAB New Zealand, the single operator that may lawfully take racing and sports bets in New Zealand. Both run on the TAB NZ betting engine, both share the same betting rules and both share the same harm-minimisation framework. A self-exclusion at TAB NZ applies across both brands. Choosing between them is a question of interface preference, not of choosing a different bookmaker.

Is a player punished for betting with an overseas bookmaker?

No. Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, inserted in 2025, 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. The Department of Internal Affairs’s role on the player side is to warn of the risks — weak consumer protection in the operator’s home jurisdiction, no obligation to return unspent credits, no obligation to pay out large wins, no New Zealand harm-minimisation framework — rather than to punish. The safe wording is “New Zealand law targets the operator; DIA warns the player; no published penalty for a player was found.”

Prepared by the Nzsolebookie editorial staff.