Mobile Betting in New Zealand: What the App on Your Phone Can Actually Do

Updated October 2026

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Dollars current as of 26 October 2026 and cross-checked against the Racing Industry Act 2020 and the Department of Internal Affairs guidance.

The New Zealand betting market is not the kind of market where you weigh ten apps against each other and pick the best one. There are ten apps in this guide because players meet ten apps in the wild, but only two of them may lawfully take a racing or sports bet from a person in New Zealand. The other eight are not variations on the same theme — they sit outside the legal framework entirely. That single fact reshapes what “mobile betting in New Zealand” means: it is less a comparison of features and more a question of which side of the line a punter stands on, and what each side offers in return.

Since section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 took effect on 28 June 2025, TAB NZ and its online sister brand Betcha are the only operators allowed to take online sports and racing bets from people in New Zealand. TAB and Betcha are not rivals competing for the same customer; they are two doors into the same operator, run by the same company under the same New Zealand harm-minimisation rules. Everything else in this guide — the offshore apps, the Curaçao licences, the apps that publish a 21+ age notice — exists in a parallel space where the Department of Internal Affairs has told providers to withdraw with immediate effect and where no New Zealand complaints route reaches the player.

That does not mean eight apps are worthless to read about. Punters looking at a BetWinner banner or a SpinBetter ad need to know what they are looking at, what kind of licence sits behind it, and what they give up by going there. The guide works through the lawful side first, because that is what most readers came for, and works through the offshore side afterwards, because that is what most readers will see in a Google result.

The statute that turned the market into a monopoly

The Racing Industry Act 2020 established TAB NZ as the sole betting provider for racing and sports in New Zealand. The Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025, in force from 28 June 2025, inserted section 74AAA into that framework. The clause is short enough to be the centre of every sentence in this section: 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 that person is resident or incorporated.

There is no licence to apply for. There is no register of bookmakers, because there is only one lawful bookmaker. The Department of Internal Affairs, which regulates gambling under the Gambling Act 2003 and monitors compliance with the betting prohibition under section 92A of the Racing Industry Act, told providers serving New Zealand to withdraw with immediate effect once the new section took effect. The law does not geo-block offshore websites — it puts the liability on the offshore operator. New Zealand players can still load a Curaçao-licensed app on their phone; the law targets the company behind it, not the person placing the bet.

The partnership that runs TAB NZ sits behind that framework. TAB NZ’s partner Entain runs the TAB business under a 25-year agreement signed in 2023, with Entain taking a 50/50 share of gross profits and a guaranteed minimum of $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 as part of the deal. That is the commercial backbone of the monopoly: a foreign operator running the technology and the trading under a long contract, with the New Zealand racing and sports ecosystem funded out of the gross profits that flow back to TAB NZ.

Two corollaries matter for a punter reading this page on a phone. First, the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026, which started its licensing process for online casino gambling, does not extend the betting monopoly and does not change who may take racing or sports bets — TAB NZ still has that exclusively. TAB NZ winning the right to apply for a casino licence under that Act is not a route for any other bookmaker to take bets. Second, greyhound racing is closing in stages from 1 August 2026, and from that date offshore operators may not take bets on greyhound races either, even if they had been taking bets on other events until then. The greyhound code is the one sporting line that has its own end date written into the rule book.

What TAB NZ and Betcha may take bets on

TAB NZ’s two brands accept fixed-odds bets and tote (pool) bets. The published betting rules define the bet types a punter will actually meet: Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie and Big6 on the racing side, and a full sportsbook on the sporting side. The app carries Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, one-tap Popular Multis, and a Place Extra option that lets punters back runners to finish up to the tenth in selected races — a wider place market than most readers will be used to outside New Zealand.

The sportsbook covers horse and harness racing, rugby union and rugby league, and the wider catalogue a New Zealand punter expects. Live betting is listed in the TAB NZ apps. Whether any statutory restriction exists on in-play markets is not established — what the apps carry is what the apps carry, and a punter checking the live schedule inside the app sees the markets actually offered at that moment. No lawful New Zealand betting exchange exists, and spread betting sits outside TAB NZ’s sports-betting definition. Bets on politics and novelty markets are not established in the rule book, so the practical answer is what the betting slip shows on the day.

The boundaries of what may be bet on extend beyond events held inside New Zealand. A New Zealand punter can bet on the Melbourne Cup, the All Blacks in a Test in Auckland or Johannesburg, the Black Caps on tour, or the Warriors in an NRL round — all through TAB NZ or Betcha, all under the same legal framework. What they cannot lawfully do, through a different app, is bet on the same All Blacks Test on a platform that has no right to take that bet. The monopoly covers the customer, not the calendar.

The minimum age for a TAB NZ account is 18. Section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020 makes betting under 18 an offence. The TAB NZ app carries a 17+ rating on the New Zealand App Store, while making clear that customers must be 18 or over to bet — the store rating reflects the application’s content classification, not a lowering of the betting age. Account opening requires a verified New Zealand address and identity documents, the same checks a bank or a fintech performs, and those checks are why the lawful apps can pay out and the offshore ones often cannot. Land-based casinos in New Zealand have a 20-year age threshold; that is a different licence class with a different age, and the two must not be confused.

How New Zealand protects the punter inside the monopoly

The harm-minimisation framework inside the TAB NZ and Betcha apps is the reason the monopoly exists in this shape. The Department of Internal Affairs did not design section 74AAA to shut choice down for its own sake; it designed it to keep the harm-minimisation tools in the same hands as the betting product.

TAB NZ provides safer gambling tools in its app: deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion. A self-exclusion applies across both TAB NZ brands, so a punter who excludes themselves from TAB cannot reopen at Betcha to get around the exclusion — both apps read from the same exclusion record. The app lists the free 24/7 Gambling Helpline on 0800 654 655 and the text line on 8006, both of which feed into the same Safer Gambling Aotearoa service. Betcha carries the same safer-betting tools in its app and lists the same helpline.

The levy that funds that harm-minimisation work sits at 0.74% of TAB NZ’s betting revenue, in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028. The Department of Internal Affairs operates under the Gambling Act 2003 and the Advertising Standards Authority’s Gambling Advertising Code applies to betting advertisements, with rules on betting advertising targeting children, harm, and terms availability. None of this is visible from the home screen of an app, but it is what sits behind the app.

A punter comparing the two lawful apps does not need a long checklist. Both run on the same TAB NZ account infrastructure, the same exclusion record and the same harm-minimisation framework. The brand differences are mostly commercial (Branding, beta product sequencing, user-experiment interface changes), not regulatory. A punter who wants the racing-led TAB experience installs the TAB app; a punter who wants a sports-led Entain-styled experience installs Betcha. Both are lawful, both are the same operator, both reach the same complaints route if anything goes wrong.

How New Zealand taxes a winning bet

For the recreational punter, Inland Revenue’s general position is that gambling winnings are not taxable income. Prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is specifically not taxable. The exception is a person who bets as a business — a professional punter whose wagering activity rises to the level of a trade — and that is a different conversation that starts with an accountant, not a betting app.

On the operator side, TAB NZ pays the 0.74% Problem Gambling Levy out of its betting revenue. Overseas operators supplying New Zealand residents pay an online gambling duty of 12% of profits since 1 July 2024, rising to 16% from 1 January 2027. A duty being payable does not make an offer lawful, and the page never writes that tax payment shows an offshore bookmaker is legal. The point-of-consumption charge on offshore racing and sports bets ceased on 30 June 2026; offshore operators now pay the online gambling duty instead. That change does not extend their right to take bets from New Zealand residents; section 74AAA still does that work.

The honest framing for the recreational punter is short: a winning TAB NZ or Betcha bet is paid out gross, no tax withheld at source, no IRD form to file. A winning offshore bet at a Curaçao-licensed app is paid out under the rules of that operator, with no New Zealand tax in the picture and no New Zealand guarantee that the money actually arrives.

What sits outside the monopoly

Eight of the ten apps in this guide are not licensed in New Zealand. Each of them names a licence in its footer — Curaçao, Anjouan, Tobique, the Union of the Comoros — and none of those licences gives the right to take racing or sports bets from a person in New Zealand. Section 74AAA applies regardless of where the operator is resident or incorporated; the licensing regime the operator chose has no standing inside the New Zealand market.

The operational consequences are concrete. There is no New Zealand complaints route. There is no harm-minimisation framework the offshore app is required to run. The Department of Internal Affairs warns that overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins. The 0800 654 655 helpline and the Safer Gambling Aotearoa service are not extended to offshore accounts. A punter who self-excludes from TAB and Betcha has no way to extend that exclusion to an offshore app, because the offshore app is not reading from the same record.

The penalty question is often the next one, and it deserves a clear answer. New Zealand law targets the operator; the Department of Internal Affairs warns players of the risks; no published penalty for a player placing a bet with an offshore operator was found. Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, inserted in 2025, says an individual may not be convicted for placing a bet with an offshore betting operator in breach of section 74AAA. The page does not write that betting offshore is illegal for the player, and it does not write that it is legal. The truthful framing is the middle one: TAB NZ and Betcha are the only lawful option, with New Zealand harm-minimisation tools, regulator oversight and a complaints framework; offshore operators are unlawful for the operator to serve New Zealand, with no New Zealand complaints route, the Department of Internal Affairs’ stated risks, and the limits a player accepts when they leave the regulated side.

Bonuses, free bets and the marketing word that is worth deflating

The marketing words that orbit every sportsbook in the world — “free bet”, “bonus cash”, “risk-free”, “boosted odds” — show up in the New Zealand apps too. The TAB NZ app lists Bonus Cash that can be split across multiple bets, and the app carries 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, with terms and conditions applying. Both the value and the conditions are spelled out in the app’s own terms, not in a banner; a punter who wants to know what an offer actually costs reads the offer page inside the app before tapping Claim.

The page does not print a working bonus, promo or voucher code. The codes change, the offer cycles, and the terms behind them are the part that costs the punter when an offer is misread. What matters on a comparison page is the shape of an offer, not its current size.

The arithmetic behind an offer is the same arithmetic on every app, lawful or not. The freebet-value formula for a free bet whose stake is not paid back is the free-bet amount multiplied by odds minus one, divided by odds, multiplied by the payout share of the market the free bet is placed on. The result is what the free bet is worth on average — never what it wins on a single outcome. A punter looking at a $10 free bet at odds of 5.00 on a market with a 95% payout share is looking at an expected value of $10 × 4 ÷ 5 × 0.95 = $7.60, before any minimum-price rule, expiry or market exclusion the operator attaches. The marketing word says “free $10”. The arithmetic says $7.60 of expected value, conditional on the punter placing the bet at all.

The minimum-price rule is the part that quietly reduces the expected value. A free bet with a minimum odds requirement of 1.50 forces the punter into markets the operator knows carry a worse payout share than the headline event. A bonus with a wagering requirement of five times the bonus amount on bets at minimum odds of 1.50 turns a $10 bonus into $50 of turnover at a market where the bookmaker’s margin sits higher than the headline market the bonus was advertised against. None of that is hidden; it is written into the terms, and the page treats the terms as the offer.

Inside the TAB NZ and Betcha apps

The two lawful apps look different on the home screen and behave the same underneath. The TAB NZ app, published by the New Zealand Racing Board and first released on 8 September 2014, has had time to build a racing-first layout: Trackside live race streaming with in-app betting, racing form, Blackbook and Jockey Challenge tools, and a simplified wallet for deposits and withdrawals. The Betcha app, published by Entain New Zealand Limited and first released on 6 August 2024, is newer and Entain-styled, with a sportsbook-first layout that mirrors the Entain product family Australian and European punters will recognise.

Both apps carry a 17+ rating on the New Zealand App Store and both state that customers must be 18 or over to bet. The store rating is a content classification, not a lowering of the betting age. Account opening requires a verified New Zealand address and identity documents, and that verification is the part the offshore apps do not run, which is one of the reasons the New Zealand harm-minimisation framework sits where it does.

The wallet mechanics matter on a mobile-first product. The TAB NZ app uses a simplified wallet for deposits and withdrawals, with the deposit methods and limits set by TAB NZ’s own terms rather than by statute. There is no statutory rule on payment methods for betting accounts — card, bank, credit, prepaid, and crypto all sit at the operator’s discretion. The deposit limit the punter sets inside the safer-betting tool sits on top of whatever account-level limit TAB NZ applies; a punter who wants a hard ceiling uses the in-app tool, not the deposit-method ceiling.

The mobile experience is the whole experience for a generation of punters. Pre-match betting, live betting, racing form, bet slip, deposit, withdrawal, safer-betting tool, helpline — every step of a punt lives inside the app. The two apps are the only ones that do all of those steps inside a New Zealand framework.

How offshore mobile apps work from a New Zealand connection

An offshore app installs the same way any app installs. The punter downloads it from the App Store or an Android store, opens an account, deposits by whatever method the cashier accepts, and bets on the markets the sportsbook shows. The age notice in the footer often reads 21+, not 18, because the operator’s home jurisdiction sets the threshold and the operator never built its site for New Zealand. The cashier page may list New Zealand in its country selector — BillyBets does — and the only currency filter shown may be Euro, because the operator prices its product for a European customer with a New Zealand sign-up slot.

The licence stack sits behind the same cashier page. TechSolutions Group N.V., the Curaçao-registered holder of 22Bet, 20Bet, Bizzo and National Casino, runs the 22Bet brand under Curaçao licence number 8048/JAZ. Rooster.bet is operated by Novatrix SRL, a Costa Rica–incorporated company, under e-gaming licence No. 0000002 from the Tobique Gaming Commission. Winz.io holds Anjouan and Tobique licences. The licence is real; what it does not do is extend the right to take bets from people in New Zealand. A Curaçao licence is a permission to operate from Curaçao under Curaçao rules, not a passport into every market.

The age gap is the simplest way to see the spread. TAB NZ and Betcha require 18+. SpinBetter’s footer states 21+. Megapari’s footer states 21+. BetWinner’s footer states 21+. Paripesa’s footer states 21+. Boomerang Bet accepts 18+. Alawin accepts 18+. The two thresholds sit inside different regimes, and a New Zealand punter who is 18 is inside the TAB NZ market and outside the 21+ market — which is a separate exclusion the operator chose, not a New Zealand rule.

The product gap is the wider one. An offshore sportsbook with a Curaçao licence carries football, tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football, baseball, table tennis, esports, virtual sports, casino, live casino and crash games, plus a sportsbook that runs 24/7. RTbet’s sportsbook covers football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football and baseball, with live betting and virtual sports. FunBet’s sportsbook offers odds on football, ice hockey, American football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, rugby and baseball, with live betting. Golden Panda adds esports, cashback, a VIP Club, Golden Goals and Prediction Markets. The product catalogue is wider than TAB NZ’s. That is the part the marketing copy leads with, and it is the part that disappears the moment the punter asks who pays out the winnings.

The numbers a punter actually uses: odds, stake and return

Every price the punter sees on the TAB NZ or Betcha app is decimal odds, written as $2.10 or $4.50. The arithmetic is the same as on any decimal-odds sportsbook. Return on a winning single bet is stake multiplied by odds. A $10 bet at odds of 3.50 returns $35. Net profit on the same bet, after the $10 stake is taken out, is $25. A combination bet multiplies the odds of the legs into one price — a three-leg multi at odds of 2.00, 3.00 and 4.00 has a combined price of 24.00, and a $5 stake returns $120 if all three legs win.

The bookmaker’s margin sits inside every price and is the part the marketing copy never leads with. The margin of a market is one minus the payout share, and the payout share is one divided by the sum of the reciprocals of the odds of every outcome. For a two-outcome market priced at 1.91 and 1.91, the payout share is one divided by (1/1.91 + 1/1.91) = 0.955, and the margin is 4.5%. For a three-outcome 1X2 market priced at 2.50, 3.40 and 2.90, the payout share is one divided by (1/2.50 + 1/3.40 + 1/2.90) = 0.873, and the margin is 12.7%. The market with the tighter prices is the market where the bookmaker keeps less of every dollar bet on it.

The expected cost of clearing a bonus is turnover multiplied by the margin of the market the bonus is wagered on. A $10 bonus with a five-times wagering requirement at minimum odds of 1.50 means $50 of turnover at a market the operator knows carries a margin the punter did not see in the headline. A punter who reads the terms before claiming the offer sees this expected cost. A punter who claims the offer and discovers it later has paid it.

The ranking: ten apps against one rule

The ten apps in this ranking are paid out or listed, not ranked against each other. TAB and Betcha are the two lawful New Zealand apps, run by the same operator under the same framework. The other eight are offshore apps that New Zealand players meet, each marked “not licensed in New Zealand” because that is the only honest label the section 74AAA framework lets the page apply. A punter reading the ranking is not choosing between ten alternatives; the punter is choosing between two lawful doors and a parallel offshore market that exists without New Zealand oversight.

The comparison table below pairs each operator with its New Zealand status and what its own terms say on the matter this page covers most. The table does not blend the two groups; it presents the lawful pair first, then the offshore list with the same criteria and an honest label on every row.

The table is short on purpose. A comparison table that hides the lawful-vs-offshore split behind a column of star ratings tells the punter the wrong story; a table that shows the split plainly tells the right one.

TAB (TAB NZ brand)

TAB is the racing-led face of the monopoly. The app carries Trackside live race streaming with in-app betting, racing form, Blackbook and Jockey Challenge tools, Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, one-tap Popular Multis and a Place Extra option that lets punters back runners to finish up to the tenth in selected races. The bonus structure lists Bonus Cash split across multiple bets, plus 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.

The product is racing-first because New Zealand is racing-first, and the sportsbook sits alongside the racing product rather than above it. The deposit and withdrawal wallet is a simplified one designed for a mobile-first punter. The safer-betting tools — deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion — sit inside the account menu and feed the same exclusion record that Betcha reads. The Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 and the text line 8006 are listed inside the app.

A punter choosing between the two TAB NZ brands and not sure which to install wants the racing-led app for harness racing, greyhounds (until they close on 1 August 2026) and the All Blacks on a Saturday; that punter installs TAB. A punter who wants the sportsbook-led Entain interface installs Betcha. The choice is a commercial one; the regulatory ground under both feet is the same.

Betcha (TAB NZ brand)

Betcha is the sports-led face of the same monopoly. The app is published by Entain New Zealand Limited, first released on 6 August 2024, which makes it the newer of the two apps and the one with the Entain product DNA. The sportsbook is laid out the way an Entain sportsbook is laid out across the operator’s other markets, with the racing product present but sitting in a secondary navigation slot.

The safer-betting tools and the 0800 654 655 helpline are listed inside the app the same way they are in TAB. The age notice states 18+. The account opening flow requires a verified New Zealand address and ID. The exclusion record is shared with TAB, so a self-excluded TAB punter cannot reopen at Betcha to bypass the exclusion.

A punter who wants the Enstab product look, with a sportsbook front-and-centre, installs Betcha. A punter who wants the racing form and the Blackbook tools installs TAB. The trade is interface and product emphasis, not regulatory position.

BillyBets (not licensed in New Zealand)

BillyBets is a Curaçao-licensed mobile-optimised casino and sportsbook brand. The site lists New Zealand in its country selector, the cashier shows Euro as the only currency filter, and the support team runs 24/7 via live chat and a Help Centre. The mobile experience runs through the mobile-optimised web platform on both Android and iOS.

A New Zealand punter looking at BillyBets sees a familiar interface, a familiar payment stack and a familiar support team. What the punter does not see is a New Zealand complaints route, a New Zealand harm-minimisation framework or a regulator with jurisdiction over the operator. The Department of Internal Affairs’ warning about overseas operators applies here: minimal consumer safeguards, no guarantee that unspent credits will be returned, no guarantee that large wins will be paid out. The age threshold is 18+ per the operator’s terms.

A punter who is comfortable with those trade-offs and who is over 18 may place a bet there; the page does not tell the punter not to. The page tells the punter what BillyBets is and what it is not, and what it is not is a New Zealand-regulated bookmaker.

Alawin (not licensed in New Zealand)

Alawin’s published terms accept customers aged 18 or over. The site runs a sportsbook and a casino under the same brand, with no New Zealand-specific licensing on either product. The country selector and the cashier page sit inside the operator’s own terms rather than inside a New Zealand framework.

A punter comparing Alawin to TAB NZ or Betcha is comparing two different regimes. TAB NZ offers the New Zealand harm-minimisation framework, the Gambling Helpline and a regulator with jurisdiction. Alawin offers a product catalogue and an 18+ age threshold; the rest of the trade-off sits on the punter’s side of the ledger. A punter who has read the terms and is comfortable with the trade-off may use Alawin; the page does not approve or disapprove.

RTbet (not licensed in New Zealand)

RTbet runs a Curaçao-licensed sportsbook with a stated catalogue of football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football and baseball, plus live betting and virtual sports. The mobile experience is browser-based, with the site loading inside the phone’s browser the way a mobile-optimised sportsbook loads.

A punter looking at RTbet for the catalogue sees a wider sport menu than TAB NZ’s, with virtual sports as a separate vertical. The catalogue is the marketing word, and the part that follows the catalogue is the licensing regime, the complaints route and the harm-minimisation framework — none of which extend to a Curaçao-licensed operator from a New Zealand punter. The Department of Internal Affairs’ warning applies in full.

FunBet (not licensed in New Zealand)

FunBet’s sportsbook lists football, ice hockey, American football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, rugby and baseball, with live betting and a bookmaker described as open 24/7. The mobile experience sits inside the mobile browser, with no published native app for either iOS or Android.

The rugby line is the one that matters to a New Zealand punter reading the catalogue. FunBet offers rugby; the question is what rugby market FunBet actually prices at a SuperBet price, and that is the part a punter checks inside the bet slip rather than on the marketing page. The 24/7 claim is a marketing word; the part that runs 24/7 is the bookmaker, not the price.

22Bet (not licensed in New Zealand)

22Bet is operated by TechSolutions Group N.V., a Curaçao-registered company with registration number 144920, under Curaçao licence number 8048/JAZ. The same company runs 20Bet, Bizzo and National Casino. The product stack is wide: a sportsbook with live betting, a casino, a live casino, a poker room and a virtual sports vertical, with iOS and Android apps and a mobile-optimised web product.

The fact that the same operator runs four brands is the part the marketing page does not lead with. A New Zealand punter who opens an account at 22Bet and hits a withdrawal limit has four brands to chase the same operator for, which is a customer-experience benefit; the fact that the operator runs four brands from Curaçao does not give the punter a New Zealand complaints route. The Department of Internal Affairs’ warning about overseas operators applies in full.

Rooster.bet (not licensed in New Zealand)

Rooster.bet is operated by Novatrix SRL, a Costa Rica–incorporated company with registration number 3-102-893958, under e-gaming licence No. 0000002 from the Tobique Gaming Commission. The brand runs a sportsbook, a casino and a live casino, with the mobile experience delivered through the mobile-optimised web product.

The Tobique licence is the kind of licence an offshore operator names without naming its geographic reach. Tobique Gaming Commission licences do not extend the right to take bets from people in New Zealand; they extend the right to operate under Tobique’s rules from Tobique’s jurisdiction. A New Zealand punter who self-excludes from TAB and Betcha has no way to extend that exclusion to Rooster.bet, because Rooster.bet is not reading from the same record.

Golden Panda (not licensed in New Zealand)

Golden Panda runs a Sports section with a sportsbook, esports, virtual sports, casino, live casino, crash games, a rewards programme, cashback, a VIP Club, Golden Goals and Prediction Markets. The vertical list is the marketing word; the part that follows the list is the licensing regime, which Golden Panda does not name in a form that applies in New Zealand.

Prediction Markets is the line that draws a sharp eye. A Prediction Market inside an offshore sportsbook is a casino product dressed in a financial name; the regulatory regime that governs prediction markets in some other jurisdictions does not extend to New Zealand, and the operator is not regulated by the Department of Internal Affairs or the Gambling Commission under that framework. A New Zealand punter who reads “Prediction Markets” and thinks of an investment product is reading a casino product.

Winz.io (not licensed in New Zealand)

Winz.io states in its footer that it holds licences from Anjouan and Tobique. The brand runs a sportsbook and a casino under the same roof, with the mobile experience delivered through the mobile-optimised web product and a mobile cashier. The licence stack is two licences, both offshore, neither with jurisdiction over New Zealand.

The Anjouan and Tobique combination is a common one among offshore operators; it is a permission to operate from those jurisdictions, not a passport into every market. A New Zealand punter looking at Winz.io sees a product; the part that sits underneath the product is the licensing regime, which is the part that matters most when a withdrawal is contested.

How a punter reads the comparison

The honest reading of the ten brands is two groups of operators with different rules and different outcomes when something goes wrong. TAB and Betcha are the two lawful New Zealand apps, run by the same operator under the same New Zealand harm-minimisation framework, with the same regulator behind them and the same complaints route if a withdrawal stalls. The other eight are offshore brands that take bets from New Zealand residents while the Department of Internal Affairs has told them to withdraw, with no New Zealand complaints route, no New Zealand harm-minimisation framework, and the limits a punter accepts by going there.

The page does not pretend the offshore apps do not exist; a New Zealand punter meets them in search results, in social ads and in affiliate sites, and a guide that pretends they are not there fails the punter the moment the punter lands on one. The page describes them as what they are and lets the punter make the call.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Only TAB NZ may do so, through its two online brands, TAB and Betcha. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, in force from 28 June 2025, makes any other offer of sports or racing betting to a person in New Zealand unlawful on the operator’s side. There is no licence to apply for, because there is only one lawful operator.

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

Return equals stake multiplied by odds. A $10 single bet at odds of 3.50 returns $35 on a win, with net profit of $25 after the stake is taken out. A combination bet multiplies the odds of each leg into one price, so a three-leg multi at odds of 2.00, 3.00 and 4.00 has a combined price of 24.00, and a $5 stake returns $120 if all three legs win.

What is the bookmaker’s margin, and how is it visible in the odds?

The margin is one minus the payout share, and the payout share is one divided by the sum of the reciprocals of the odds of every outcome of the market. A two-outcome market priced at 1.91 and 1.91 has a payout share of 0.955 and a margin of 4.5%. A three-outcome 1X2 market priced at 2.50, 3.40 and 2.90 has a payout share of 0.873 and a margin of 12.7%. The margin is what the bookmaker keeps of every dollar bet on the market.

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

The player loses the New Zealand harm-minimisation framework, the regulator’s oversight, and the complaints route that sits behind a TAB NZ or Betcha account. The Department of Internal Affairs warns that overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits, and may not pay out large wins. The player gains a wider product catalogue and a different bonus structure, and the trade-off sits on the punter’s side of the ledger.

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

The minimum age is 18; section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020 makes betting under 18 an offence. Account opening requires a verified New Zealand address and identity documents. The TAB NZ and Betcha apps carry a 17+ App Store content rating while making clear that customers must be 18 or over to bet; the rating is a content classification, not a lowering of the betting age.

Are betting winnings taxed in New Zealand?

Recreational gambling winnings are generally not taxable under Inland Revenue guidance, and prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is specifically not taxable. A person who bets as a business is a different case and must consult Inland Revenue or an accountant. TAB NZ pays the 0.74% Problem Gambling Levy on its betting revenue; offshore operators supplying New Zealand residents pay an online gambling duty on profits, but paying duty does not make an offer lawful.

Prepared by the Nzsoccerodds editorial staff.