Live Betting in New Zealand: What Is Actually Allowed, and What a Live Bet Costs the Punter

Updated October 2026

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Snapshot current as of 30 October 2026, checked against the Department of Internal Affairs’ guidance on the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025.

Live betting in New Zealand is a thinner subject than it first looks. The country has one lawful online bookmaker — TAB NZ, operating through two brands, TAB and Betcha — and the thinness of the field is not a quirk of marketing. It sits in section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, which took effect on 28 June 2025 and bars any other operator from taking sports or racing bets from a person in New Zealand. The Department of Internal Affairs told unlicensed providers to withdraw with immediate effect, and offshore bookmakers that keep serving New Zealand punters are breaking New Zealand law even if they hold a licence somewhere else. That single fact reshapes the rest of the page: the comparison below is between two New Zealand brands on the one hand and a long list of offshore operators on the other, and a reader who treats the two lists as one market is reading the wrong article.

What follows works through what live betting is and how it pays, why the legal frame looks the way it does, what a TAB or Betcha account actually offers an in‑play punter, and where offshore brands fit into a decision a New Zealand reader is making. The angle is consequence — what the rules mean for the person placing the bet, not the regulator or the operator.

The Momentum and the Whistle: How Live Betting Actually Works

In‑play betting, also called live betting, lets a punter place new bets while a sporting event is in progress. The market is open from the first whistle, the first bowl or the first jump; it updates with every goal, every wicket, every run of play; and it closes as the event settles into its final shape. A pre‑match bet is a contract struck at one price, on terms fixed when both sides had time to think. A live bet is a contract struck on the run, at a price the bookmaker is repricing second by second.

That is the whole point and most of the cost. Live odds are shorter than their pre‑match equivalents on a heavy favourite once that favourite goes a goal up, and longer on the underdog the moment it takes the lead. The bookmaker is not being generous; the bookmaker is shrinking the margin of error the punter used to have. A pre‑match bet is a bet on the shape of an event the punter has not yet seen. A live bet is a bet on a shape the punter is watching reshape itself in real time, and the price reflects that.

Cash out sits next to live betting and is worth its own sentence. A bookmaker offering cash out lets the punter close a bet before the event finishes — take profit on a winning position, or claw back part of the stake on a losing one. The feature is common across online sportsbooks; the conditions are not. Cash out is usually unavailable while a market is suspended, may fail if the odds move or the market is pulled in the brief pause between the punter clicking cash out and the bookmaker accepting, and is sometimes restricted on singles and multiples. A punter who treats cash out as a guaranteed exit is reading the headline, not the terms.

Live betting is offered on a long list of sports in markets outside New Zealand — football, tennis, basketball, American football, baseball, table tennis, combat sports, cricket, rugby, and a long esports tail. In New Zealand, the live menu is whatever TAB and Betcha publish on the day: the TAB NZ app covers horse and harness racing, rugby union and rugby league and a wide spread of other sports, both pre‑match and live. Betcha carries a Multi Builder that lets punters build multi bets, copy trending multis and track live legs, alongside a Same Game Multi grid. The breadth is real; the ceiling is set by what the two brands have priced up for a given fixture.

The honest framing of live betting is that the time advantage runs both ways. A punter with a feel for the game can read a shift in momentum faster than a model can, and a price that briefly lags the run of play is a price worth taking. A punter who reacts to noise — a yellow card, a missed penalty, a bowler changing ends — is reacting to a market that has already priced the same information, and the only edge in that picture is the bookmaker’s. Live betting rewards a punter who has watched the sport long enough to know what a passage of play means, and it charges a premium to everyone else. The punter who walks into a live market cold pays the cost of every other punter’s accumulated knowledge of the fixture.

A Practical Note on What a Live Bet Returns

A live bet pays the same arithmetic as any other bet: return equals stake multiplied by the decimal odds, and the net profit is the stake multiplied by the odds minus one. A $10 bet at decimal odds of 3.50 returns $35 if it wins — stake of $10, profit of $25. The same $10 at odds of 1.85 returns $18.50 if it wins — profit of $8.50. Multipliers work the same way, with one twist: a combination bet multiplies the odds of the legs into a single price, and every leg has to land for the bet to pay.

The band matters more than the figure. Decimal odds of 3.50 on a live market are not the same as 3.50 before the match — the live book is repricing against a smaller universe of possible outcomes, and the price reflects that the match has been running for an hour. A punter who places the same $10 at the same number on a market that has already moved will not earn the same expected value as a punter who took the price when the market was softer. The bet is settled at the price at the moment it was struck; the punter pays whatever that price implies about the rest of the event.

Return is not profit, and a long winning run is not the same as a profitable one. The bookmaker’s margin sits inside every price, and a market that pays 95 cents on the dollar over its outcomes keeps five on the dollar on every bet struck. A punter who wins at 1.85 odds on a market that pays 92 cents on the dollar has won less than the headline price suggested, because the bookmaker was keeping 8 cents on the dollar before the bet was placed. The price is the headline; the margin is the part the headline does not show.

The Statute: Why New Zealand Has One Lawful Online Bookmaker

The Racing Industry Act 2020 establishes TAB NZ as the holder of the country’s betting monopoly. The Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025 inserted section 74AAA, in force since 28 June 2025: 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. The Department of Internal Affairs told providers serving New Zealand to withdraw with immediate effect, and the change was not a consultation. There is no licence to apply for and no licence register for bookmakers, because there is only one lawful operator.

TAB NZ runs the betting business under a 25‑year partnership signed in 2023 with Entain. Entain operates the platform; gross profits are split 50/50; TAB NZ receives at least $150 million a year for the first five years; and Entain pledged a one‑off $100 million payment to the racing sector at the start of the agreement. The two online brands — TAB and Betcha — are both TAB NZ products. They share an account, a wallet, a self‑exclusion framework, and a regulator. They are not rivals, and a comparison that frames them as competitors to choose between is reading the wrong marketing material.

The law does not work the way some readers expect. New Zealand does not block offshore websites, and a New Zealand punter can open an account with an offshore bookmaker if that bookmaker will have them. What the law targets is the operator. Section 74AAA puts liability on the offshore bookmaker for offering bets to a person in New Zealand; the player side is handled differently. 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 operator in breach of section 74AAA, and no source states a penalty for the player. Honest framing: New Zealand law targets the operator; the regulator warns players of the risks; no published penalty for a player was found.

What the regulator actually warns is worth reading. The Department of Internal Affairs notes that overseas operators may sit in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits, and may not pay out large wins. None of those risks is theoretical. An offshore bookmaker that pulls a New Zealand punter’s account at the moment of a big win is operating within its own terms; an offshore bookmaker that delays a withdrawal for months is operating within its own terms; an offshore bookmaker that holds an unspent balance and refuses to return it is operating within its own terms. A New Zealand punter who has a dispute with TAB NZ has the Department of Internal Affairs, a Problem Gambling Levy framework, a Gambling Helpline, and a self‑exclusion register that runs across both brands. A New Zealand punter who has a dispute with an offshore brand relies on the offshore brand’s own complaints process and whatever regulator sits in the offshore brand’s own jurisdiction.

The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 changes a different part of the picture. The new law licenses online casino gambling and lets TAB New Zealand apply for a casino licence; it does not change the sports and racing betting monopoly. A reader who hears that TAB has a casino licence must not conclude that the betting field has opened. It has not. Greyhound racing is closing in stages from 1 August 2026, and from that date offshore operators may not take bets on greyhound races either. The closure is part of a long‑running reform of the racing codes, not a sign that the betting monopoly is loosening.

What a TAB or Betcha Account Looks Like for a Live Bettor

A TAB or Betcha account requires a verified New Zealand address and verified ID, and the age for betting is 18 — betting under 18 is an offence under section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020. Land‑based casinos are 20, a separate rule, and the two are not to be merged. The age check is not a marketing line; the betting app carries a 17+ App Store rating while the terms state that customers must be 18 or over to bet, and the difference is the kind of detail that has tripped up a regulator in other markets.

The TAB NZ app covers horse and harness racing, rugby union and rugby league, and a wide spread of other sports — pre‑match and live. Trackside live race streaming is built into the app, with in‑app betting, racing form, Blackbook and Jockey Challenge tools, and a simplified wallet for deposits and withdrawals. Betcha carries a Multi Builder that lets punters build multi bets, copy trending multis and track live legs, and a same‑game multi grid. Both brands run off the same TAB NZ account; a self‑exclusion applied to one runs across the other.

The safer gambling tools in the TAB NZ app are deposit limits, time‑outs, and self‑exclusion. The free Gambling Helpline is 0800 654 655, with a text line at 8006. Safer Gambling Aotearoa is the harm‑minimisation body the regulator points to, and the regulator’s framing of a TAB or Betcha account is that the protections are part of the product, not an optional extra. A New Zealand punter comparing accounts on safety grounds is comparing deposit‑limit tools that the regulator can enforce against one bookmaker against deposit‑limit tools that the offshore bookmaker may or may not publish this week.

There is no single national online‑betting exclusion register. The register the casino law will create is for online casinos only. A punter who self‑excludes from TAB and Betcha is excluded across both brands; a punter who self‑excludes from TAB and Betcha is not excluded from any offshore brand the punter has an open account with. The exclusion is as wide as the regulated market and no wider.

The Offshore List: What a New Zealand Punter Is Actually Looking At

The brands below are not licensed to take bets from people in New Zealand. Each holds a licence in a different jurisdiction — Anjouan, Tobique, Curaçao — and none of these grants a right to take bets from a person in New Zealand (see section 74AAA). A New Zealand punter who opens an account with any of them is betting with an operator that the Department of Internal Affairs has told to stop serving this market, and the punter’s only complaints route is the offshore brand’s own process.

The table is a snapshot, not a ranking. The first column names the brand; the second says where it stands in New Zealand; the third carries what the brand’s own terms say about the subject of this page.

The first two rows are one operator. The other eight are not, and the second column on each of those rows is the operative fact for a New Zealand punter. A New Zealand punter weighing TAB and Betcha against the offshore list is weighing a regulated domestic product with a New Zealand harm‑minimisation framework against a long list of products that the regulator has asked to stop serving this market. The sportsbook breadth on the offshore list is real; the regulatory cover is not.

The Offshore Brands in More Detail

The eight offshore brands are reviewed below. Each is marked “not licensed in New Zealand” and the heading carries one line on what sets the brand apart in the comparison — a bare name is the same on every site. The verdicts answer different questions across the blocks: where a brand is suited to a particular kind of punter, the verdict says so; where a brand’s live offer is wider than its regulated cover, the verdict says that too.

TAB — the only lawful bookmaker in New Zealand

TAB is the retail and online brand most New Zealand punters have used at some point. The live offer sits inside the TAB NZ app: horse and harness racing, rugby union and rugby league, and a wide spread of other sports, with Trackside live race streaming and a simplified wallet. The Multi Builder and same‑game multi grid sit on the same wallet under the Betcha brand, and a self‑exclusion across TAB and Betcha is a single action.

The strengths are the regulatory cover and the integration with the racing product. The live streaming is built in, the racing form and Blackbook tools are part of the app, and the Jockey Challenge sits beside the bet slip. A punter whose interest in betting is split between racing and a Saturday afternoon of Super Rugby or NRL has a single account that handles both, and a self‑exclusion that holds across the family of brands. The narrower point is the live menu: TAB NZ’s breadth is set by what the operator has priced up for a given fixture, and on a week when an offshore bookmaker has priced a niche tennis match from a Challenger event and TAB has not, the offshore bookmaker has the wider live book. That is the cost of a single‑operator market.

The verdict is the regulatory cover, not the live book. A New Zealand punter who values a regulated account with a New Zealand harm‑minimisation framework, a free Gambling Helpline that the operator must point to, and a regulator that can compel a payout has those things at TAB and not at the offshore list. A New Zealand punter whose priority is the widest possible live menu on every fixture worldwide is reading the wrong market.

Betcha — the same TAB NZ account, a sharper product surface

Betcha is the second online brand of TAB NZ, and the same legal and regulatory frame applies: TAB NZ, Entain, section 74AAA, one wallet, one self‑exclusion. The difference from TAB is the product surface. The Multi Builder lets a punter build multi bets from a fixture, copy trending multis from the rest of the Betcha customer base, and track live legs. The same‑game multi grid is the same shape as the bigger international sportsbooks have popularised — multiple selections from one match, priced as a single bet.

The strengths are the builder and the multi grid, and the trade‑off is the rest of the racing product. A punter whose main interest is racing form, Blackbook notes and Trackside streaming will stay on the TAB app for that. A punter whose main interest is a same‑game multi on a Super Rugby match or a Friday night NRL fixture will find Betcha the cleaner surface. The two are part of the same account, and the choice is which tab the punter keeps open on a Saturday.

The verdict is the builder, not the brand. Betcha is the same operator as TAB, with a sharper product surface for multi bettors and a Same Game Multi grid that has become the standard shape for football and rugby punters. A punter who wants the builder has it; a punter who wants the racing form has it on TAB. The wallet is shared, the self‑exclusion is shared, the regulator is shared, and the question of which brand a punter “uses” is a question about which tab the punter keeps open.

Winz — Anjouan and Tobique, not a New Zealand licence

Winz is one of the offshore brands a New Zealand punter will meet through an affiliate or a search result. The footer of the site states the licence: Anjouan and Tobique, under the holder Novatrix SRL. This licence does not grant a right to take bets from a person in New Zealand, and the Department of Internal Affairs has asked the operator to stop serving this market. The brand’s own sportsbook covers the main codes and a live menu, and the breadth is the kind that pulls a New Zealand punter in for a fixture the domestic book has not priced.

The verdict is the mismatch. The live book at Winz.io is wider than the regulated cover, and a New Zealand punter using Winz.io is using a product that the New Zealand regulator has told to stop serving this market. The complaint path is Anjouan and Tobique, not Wellington, and the harm‑minimisation framework is whatever the operator publishes this week.

RTbet — Curaçao licence, the same regulatory gap

RTbet runs a sportsbook with football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football and baseball, and a live menu and virtual sports alongside. The brand’s licence is Curaçao, and Curaçao provides no lawful route to betting for a New Zealand resident. The breadth of the menu is comparable to the bigger offshore brands, and the live book is the draw.

The verdict is the same shape as the Winz.io one. The live menu is real; the New Zealand cover is not. A New Zealand punter weighing RTbet against TAB is weighing an offshore product with a Curaçao licence against a domestic product with a New Zealand regulator. The breadth comparison is fair; the regulatory comparison is not close.

Thunderpick — Curaçao, esports first

Thunderpick is held by Paloma Media B.V. in Curaçao under licence OGL/2024/677/0722. The product is a sportsbook with an esports focus, and the live menu is built around the esports calendar — the kind of depth a TAB or Betcha account does not price up the same way. For a punter whose interest is esports rather than rugby, the live menu at Thunderpick is the wider one in this comparison.

The verdict is the niche. Thunderpick is the strongest of the offshore brands for a New Zealand punter whose interest is esports, and the weakest for one interested in Super Rugby. The licence is Curaçao, the regulator is Curaçao, and a New Zealand punter’s complaints path runs through Curaçao. The product is fit for the niche; the regulatory cover is the standard offshore gap.

Roobet — Curaçao, casino and sportsbook on one account

Roobet is held by Raw Entertainment B.V. in Curaçao under licence OGL/2024/687/0427. The product is a casino and a sportsbook on one account, with a live menu on the sportsbook side. For a New Zealand punter who wants a casino and a sportsbook on one account and accepts Curaçao as the regulator, Roobet sits alongside the rest of the offshore list. The product is comparable; the licence is comparable; the New Zealand cover is comparable — which is to say, not present.

The verdict is the same shape as the wider offshore list. Roobet is a single account with a casino and a sportsbook, and the live menu is one of the wider ones in the offshore list. A New Zealand punter weighing Roobet against the rest of the offshore list is weighing casino depth, sportsbook depth, and a Curaçao licence against a Curaçao licence. The shape of the choice does not change.

FunBet — no New Zealand‑applicable licence

FunBet’s sportsbook covers football, ice hockey, American football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, rugby and baseball, with live betting and a sportsbook described as open 24/7. The brand names no licence that applies in New Zealand, and the New Zealand cover is the standard offshore gap: the regulator is wherever the brand is incorporated, and the Department of Internal Affairs has requested the withdrawal of such services.

The verdict is the 24/7 product. A New Zealand punter who has shopped the live menu at TAB and Betcha and not found a fixture will sometimes find it at FunBet, and a 24/7 sportsbook has a longer live list than a regulated domestic book on a given week. The cost is the regulatory cover, and the cost is not negotiable.

RoyalistPlay — Tobique e‑gaming licence, not a New Zealand licence

RoyalistPlay’s sportsbook offers live betting, sports promotions, results and a schedule, with football, basketball, tennis, handball, ice hockey, volleyball and table tennis among the top sports, alongside separate e‑sports and Predictions sections. The brand names a Tobique Gaming Commission e‑gaming licence, and that licence provides no right to take bets from a person in New Zealand.

The verdict is the niche. RoyalistPlay’s product is comparable in shape to the wider offshore list, and the Tobique licence is the same kind of cover as Anjouan — a regulator in a small jurisdiction that does not extend to New Zealand. A New Zealand punter weighing RoyalistPlay is weighing product breadth against regulatory cover, and the regulatory comparison is the same as the rest of the offshore list.

Glorion — no New Zealand‑applicable licence

Glorion’s sportsbook offers pre‑match and live betting, virtual sports, horse racing and esports, with markets grouped into popular, niche, indoor and outdoor sports plus entertainment events such as award shows and elections. The brand names no licence that applies in New Zealand. The breadth is wider than the regulated domestic product on the niche end, and the regulatory cover is the standard offshore gap.

The verdict is the breadth. Glorion’s product includes entertainment markets and a wider niche spread than the regulated domestic product, and a New Zealand punter whose interest is in a niche or entertainment market will sometimes find a price at Glorion that is not on the TAB or Betcha menu. The cost is the regulatory cover, and the same caveat applies: the Department of Internal Affairs has requested the withdrawal of services.

BillyBets — no New Zealand‑applicable licence

BillyBets runs a casino and a sportsbook under one account, with football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football, baseball, combat sports, esports, virtual sports and live betting on the sportsbook side. The brand names no licence that applies in New Zealand, and the regulatory cover is the standard offshore gap. Support is available 24/7 through live chat and a Help Centre, and the site runs on both Android and iOS through a mobile‑optimised platform.

The verdict is the support. The 24/7 support and the casino and sportsbook on a single account are the parts of the product that pull a New Zealand punter in, and the regulatory cover is the part the punter is not getting. The shape of the choice is the same as the rest of the offshore list.

A Short Note on Payments, Tax and Advertising

Payments on a TAB or Betcha account are set by the operator’s own terms — no statutory rule on cards, banks, prepaid or crypto was found for New Zealand betting accounts. The deposit methods and limits are TAB NZ’s own, and a punter who needs to know whether a particular method is accepted checks the operator’s own deposit page. The Department of Internal Affairs warns that overseas operators may sit in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits, and may not pay out large wins. A punter holding a balance at an offshore brand is reading the offshore brand’s own terms on withdrawal, and the New Zealand regulator does not have a tool to compel a payout.

Tax on the player side is light by design. Inland Revenue 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 the framing is general information, not tax advice — the punter consults Inland Revenue or an accountant on the business case. The point is that a recreational punter at TAB or Betcha is not filing gambling winnings as income, and the same framing applies to winnings at an offshore brand: a New Zealand punter is not taxed on a recreational win, and the offshore brand’s tax arrangements are the offshore brand’s own.

The advertising side is the part of the picture the regulator reads most carefully. The Advertising Standards Authority’s Gambling Advertising Code applies to betting advertisements: ads must not target children under 14 or young people aged 14 to under 18, judged by context, appeal and expected audience, must not encourage harm, and must be truthful with terms available. The 25 percent threshold for a “significant” audience matters in a code that turns on context. There is no New Zealand equivalent of a “whistle‑to‑whistle” ban for betting. A punter who notices a betting advertisement is seeing an ad that has been judged against the code, and the code is the part of the picture that the regulator reads most closely.

The Responsible Gambling Frame: Where Help Lives

The TAB NZ app carries the safer gambling tools as part of the product: deposit limits, time‑outs and self‑exclusion. The free Gambling Helpline is 0800 654 655, with a text line at 8006. Safer Gambling Aotearoa is the body the regulator points to for harm minimisation. A punter who sets a deposit limit at TAB and Betcha is setting it on both brands with one action, and the limit is enforced by the operator the regulator can compel.

The offshore list does not have the same cover. A New Zealand punter with a deposit limit at an offshore brand has whatever limit that brand offers this week, with no New Zealand regulator to enforce it. The Department of Internal Affairs warns that overseas operators may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins; the same regulator that warns does not have a tool to compel a payout or a refund at an offshore brand. A New Zealand punter who needs the harm‑minimisation tools to be part of the product has them at TAB and Betcha and not at the offshore list.

The cost of harm from gambling is the part of the page that does not get framed as a marketing line. The Problem Gambling Levy that TAB NZ pays is set at 0.74 percent, in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028, and the levy funds the harm‑minimisation framework. A punter at TAB or Betcha is paying the levy, and the levy pays for the Gambling Helpline, the text line, and the framework. A punter at an offshore brand is not paying the levy in the same way, and the harm‑minimisation framework the levy funds is not reaching the offshore account. The frame is part of the product, and the product is TAB and Betcha.

The Decision in Front of a New Zealand Punter

The decision is not between ten bookmakers. It is between two paths: a regulated domestic path with one operator and two brands, or an offshore path with a wider live menu and no New Zealand cover. The two paths are not the same product, and the comparison that frames them as one market is the comparison a New Zealand punter is warned against.

A New Zealand punter who values a regulated account with a New Zealand harm‑minimisation framework, a self‑exclusion that holds across brands, a regulator that can compel a payout, and a Problem Gambling Levy that funds the help line has those things at TAB and Betcha. A New Zealand punter who values the widest possible live menu on every fixture worldwide, accepts Curaçao or Anjouan as the regulator, and accepts that the Department of Internal Affairs has asked the operator to stop serving this market has the offshore list. The shape of the choice is the regulator; the breadth of the menu is the part of the picture the operator markets.

The bookmaker’s margin sits inside every price, and this article ends where that observation matters most. A New Zealand punter placing a $10 live bet at decimal odds of 3.50 is risking $10 to win $25, and the price reflects the bookmaker’s read of the run of play, the operator’s margin, and the regulator’s cover. A New Zealand punter placing the same $10 at the same number on an offshore brand is risking the same $10 to win the same $25, and the regulator behind the bookmaker is Curaçao, Anjouan or Tobique, and the harm‑minimisation framework is whatever the operator publishes this week. The price is the same; the cover is not.

The page is not a recommendation. It is a description of what live betting in New Zealand looks like in 2026, with the operators that serve the market named and the regulatory frame laid out beside them. The punter who reads it is the punter who decides, and the decision is the punter’s own.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you bet on a live football match in New Zealand?

Open the TAB or Betcha app, pick the fixture from the live menu, choose a market — match result, next goal, total goals, a same‑game multi leg — and place the bet. The price updates with the score, and the bet is struck at the price at the moment the bet is placed. Cash out, where available, lets the punter close the bet before the match finishes.

Is live betting a better way to bet than a pre‑match bet?

It depends on what the punter is better at. Live betting rewards a punter who can read a run of play faster than the model that repriced the market. Pre‑match betting rewards a punter who has priced the match before kick‑off and is happy with the price. Live odds are usually shorter on a heavy favourite that has just gone a goal up, and longer on the underdog that has just taken the lead; the punter pays for the time advantage either way.

What is the difference between a live bet and a pre‑match bet?

A pre‑match bet is struck before the event starts, at a price fixed when the market opened. A live bet is struck while the event is in progress, at a price the bookmaker is repricing second by second. The arithmetic of return is the same — stake multiplied by the odds — but the price reflects a smaller universe of possible outcomes, and the punter has less time to think.

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

Return equals stake multiplied by the decimal odds, and the net profit is the stake multiplied by the odds minus one. A $10 bet at decimal odds of 3.50 returns $35 if it wins — stake of $10, profit of $25. A combination bet multiplies the odds of the legs into a single price, and every leg has to land for the bet to pay. The bookmaker’s margin sits inside every price, and a market that pays 95 cents on the dollar keeps five on the dollar on every bet struck.

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

TAB NZ, through its two online brands, TAB and Betcha. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, in force since 28 June 2025, bars any other operator from taking racing or sports bets from a person in New Zealand. The Department of Internal Affairs told unlicensed providers to withdraw with immediate effect, and there is no licence to apply for and no licence register for bookmakers, because there is only one lawful operator.

Which tools for controlling play do TAB and Betcha offer, and who can be called for help?

The TAB NZ app offers deposit limits, time‑outs and self‑exclusion, and a self‑exclusion across TAB and Betcha is a single action. The free Gambling Helpline is 0800 654 655, with a text line at 8006, and Safer Gambling Aotearoa is the harm‑minimisation body the regulator points to. The Problem Gambling Levy, set at 0.74 percent and in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028, funds the framework. A punter at an offshore brand does not have the same cover, and the Department of Internal Affairs warns that overseas operators may not return unspent credits or pay out large wins.

Prepared by the Nzbankbets editorial staff.