Mobile betting in New Zealand 2026: the only two apps the law lets you use, and the rest the law does not

Updated October 2026

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The New Zealand betting market collapsed into a duopoly on 28 June 2025, and most of the apps a punter might still install were not invited. Two names, both owned by the same organisation, now hold the only legal right to take a sports or racing bet from a person in New Zealand. Everything else is, by definition, an offshore bookmaker advertising to you from a jurisdiction the Department of Internal Affairs has just told to stop. The choice this page is about is the choice a New Zealand punter actually has: install the lawful app, or accept that the one on the next screen is breaking the law to serve you.

That makes the rest of this comparison short, sharp and lopsided. TAB and Betcha are not rivals — they are the same operator’s two storefronts, with the same betting rules, the same safer-gambling tools, and a wallet that effectively shares state across both. The bookmakers that fill the rest of a typical “best betting apps” page are present here only as what they are: foreign-licensed platforms with no New Zealand presence, no local complaints route, and no leverage if a payout stalls. Some are excellent products. None of them is lawful here.

The angle below is choice: which paths actually exist for a New Zealand punter, who each one suits, and what it costs to walk it. The page covers the apps themselves, then the ranking of the offshore field against them, then the legal frame, the safer-gambling tools, the offer mechanics, and finally the operator reviews and the questions readers ask.

Data current as of 30 October 2026, verified against the Department of Internal Affairs register of statements and each operator’s own published terms.

Which apps you can actually use in New Zealand

Two names. TAB, the long-standing brand of the New Zealand Racing Board, and Betcha, the newer online-only brand published by Entain New Zealand Limited and first released on the New Zealand App Store on 6 August 2024. Both are online brands of TAB NZ, the statutory body the Racing Industry Act 2020 names as the sole lawful provider of racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand. The 2025 amendment to that Act — section 74AAA, in force from 28 June 2025 — closes the door on any other operator, offshore or otherwise, taking sports or racing bets from someone physically in New Zealand.

The law does not geo-block offshore websites. It puts liability on the operator, and the Department of Internal Affairs told unlicensed providers to withdraw with immediate effect on the same day the section came into force. The player is in a different position: section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, inserted in 2025, says an individual cannot be convicted for placing a bet with an offshore operator that is itself in breach of section 74AAA. No source states a player penalty. New Zealand has not criminalised the punter; it has criminalised the counterparty, and left the punter to weigh the consequences DIA spells out: unspent credits that may not come back, large wins that may not be paid, no local complaints route, and minimal consumer safeguards in the home jurisdiction.

The upshot is a market that looks, from the punter’s seat, like a choice between a national duopoly and a long list of unauthorised offers. The duopoly is the lawful path and the only one with New Zealand safer-betting tools, regulator oversight and a complaints framework behind it. The long list is everything a New Zealand punter with a VPN or a willingness to ignore the warnings can still reach. Both options are real. Only one is lawful.

The TAB and Betcha apps: what each one actually does

The TAB app — published as “TAB – Racing & Sports Betting” by New Zealand Racing Board, first released on 8 September 2014 — is the older of the two. It carries the full racing product: horse, harness and greyhound racing with fixed-odds and tote (pool) bets, racing form, Blackbook, Jockey Challenge, and Trackside live race streaming with in-app betting on the same screen. The sportsbook covers rugby union and league first, then the wider codes. The app carries a 17+ App Store age rating while stating that customers must be 18 or over to bet.

Betcha is the cleaner, sports-first version of the same business. Released on 6 August 2024, it is published by Entain New Zealand Limited and uses the same TAB NZ betting engine underneath. Its App Store listing positions it as the “sports betting” brand, with the safer-betting tools and the same Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 listed in-app. Same race multis, same game multis, same wallet, same minimum age, same exclusion logic.

What this means in practice is that the choice between TAB and Betcha is not a choice between bookmakers. It is a choice between two front doors onto one product. A punter who already has a TAB account can log into Betcha with the same identity and the same deposit method, and a self-exclusion set on one brand applies across both. The reasons to pick one over the other are interface, layout, and which sport or racing product you lead with. The reasons do not include price, market depth, or sign-up offer — those are the same on both.

The product inside the two apps

Both apps carry the same core markets, defined in TAB NZ’s published betting rules. Racing covers Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie and Big6, plus Multis and Same Game Multis — a multi whose legs all come from the one event. The Place Extra option lets punters back runners to finish up to 10th in selected races, a wider place window than the standard bookmaker. Sports covers rugby union and league, the codes New Zealand readers name first, then the international menu: football, basketball, tennis, American football, ice hockey, baseball, and the rest. Live betting is available in both apps; whether any statutory restriction on in-play markets exists is not established, so the practical limit is whatever TAB NZ’s terms set on a given event.

What the app does that the website does not

Trackside live streaming and in-play betting sit inside the TAB app, with the betting slip overlaying the same race feed. Jockey Challenge, Blackbook and racing form are built for the small screen. The “simplified wallet” the App Store listing flags is the deposit and withdrawal flow optimised for touch — a debit card, a bank transfer, a stored payment method, with limits set inside the safer-gambling tools rather than imposed at the cashier. That wallet is also why the two-brand structure works in practice: the punter does not see two operators, only two apps, with the same balance behind them.

What the app will not do for you

No New Zealand-licensed betting exchange exists. Spread betting is outside TAB NZ’s sports-betting definition and is not offered. The app does not host a casino product — that is a separate licence under the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 and TAB NZ holds it as a separate permission. Bets on politics and novelty markets are not established in the published rules. The app is the only place greyhound bets can be placed from 1 August 2026 onward, with the code winding down in stages and offshore operators losing the right to take greyhound bets on the same date. Beyond that, the bettor’s tools are what the app’s own settings expose — there is no third-party add-on, no overlay, no API a punter can hook into.

The offshore apps, and what they are

A punter who searches “best mobile betting apps” anywhere outside New Zealand will meet the same list: 22Bet, BetWinner, Megapari, SpinBetter, Paripesa, Rooster, Winz, BillyBets, Alawin, RTbet, FunBet, Golden Panda. Each of these names has a real product behind it. Each is licensed somewhere. None of them is licensed in New Zealand, and none of them is allowed to take sports or racing bets from a person in New Zealand under section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020.

The licences these operators name — Curaçao, Anjouan, Tobique Gaming Commission, the Union of the Comoros — are real licences, issued by real authorities, with real dispute resolution behind them. They give the holder the right to take bets in the jurisdictions those authorities cover. They do not hold the right to accept bets in New Zealand, and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs has said so publicly. The market share the offshore sites still have in New Zealand is, in the regulator’s framing, the result of an advertising and access gap the law cannot close on the punter’s side.

Why the offshore apps still appear in a New Zealand comparison

Because New Zealanders download them. The Play Store and the App Store do not geo-block betting apps by default. An offshore brand’s own site is reachable from a New Zealand IP address. A punter who wants a wider sportsbook, an in-play market, an esports vertical, or a cryptocurrency cashier can find one, and will. The page lists them so the comparison is honest about what the field looks like — and so the verdict on each one is on the record.

What the offshore apps offer that the TAB apps do not

Most of the offshore list runs a larger international sportsbook: more football leagues, more basketball, more tennis, more esports, with live betting and a wider in-play margin. Some of them add a casino, live casino, crash games, virtual sports, and a sports-casino crossover product (a sports welcome bonus tied to a casino balance, a single wallet across both). A few publish a 21+ minimum age where TAB NZ sits at 18; the higher number is a brand policy, not a New Zealand requirement. The crypto-friendly end of the offshore list accepts deposits and pays out in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, and a range of altcoins, with no New Zealand bank in the loop. None of this makes them lawful in New Zealand. It does make the product different.

What the offshore apps do not offer that the TAB apps do

New Zealand safer-betting tools. The TAB app carries deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion, and an exclusion applies across both TAB and Betcha. The offshore operators carry their own responsible-gambling pages, but those pages are written to a Curaçao, Anjouan or Tobique standard, not to the harm-minimisation framework New Zealand’s Gambling Act 2003 sets. The free Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 and the text line 8006 are New Zealand services, and they sit inside the TAB and Betcha apps, not in the offshore field.

A New Zealand complaints route. The TAB punter who has a payout dispute can take it to TAB NZ and, if that fails, into the Department of Internal Affairs process. The offshore punter’s complaints route runs through the licensing authority of the operator’s home jurisdiction, with whatever consumer safeguards that authority enforces. The minimum consumer safeguard in some of those jurisdictions is minimal.

A New Zealand tax frame. Recreational gambling winnings are generally not taxable in New Zealand under Inland Revenue guidance, and prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is not taxable. Winnings paid by an offshore operator in a New Zealand bank account are still, in most cases, not taxable at the player level — the player side of the duty sits on the operator. The difference is the trail: a TAB payout lands in a New Zealand account, with New Zealand reporting, and the punter’s position is unambiguous. An offshore payout arrives through a payment processor, in a currency that may or may not be the New Zealand dollar, with a paper trail that is harder to reconstruct if Inland Revenue ever asks.

The verdict on the offshore field, in one line

A New Zealand punter who installs an offshore app is making a deliberate choice to bet with an operator the regulator has told to stop, with no local complaints route, and with the realistic chance that a large win is harder to enforce than the marketing page suggests. The product is often better. The protection is not.

What the law actually says, in plain words

The Racing Industry Act 2020 establishes TAB NZ as the statutory body responsible for racing and sports betting in New Zealand. The Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025 inserted section 74AAA, which took effect on 28 June 2025 and reads, in plain words: 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 Gambling Act 2003 sets the regulator — the Department of Internal Affairs — and the framework of harm minimisation, advertising controls and enforcement that runs alongside it.

The greyhound racing code is closing in stages from 1 August 2026, and from that date offshore operators may not take bets on greyhound races either. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 is a separate piece of legislation: it licenses online casino gambling only and does not extend the betting monopoly. TAB NZ winning the right to apply for a casino licence is a casino story, not a betting one, and the betting duopoly is unaffected.

The Department of Internal Affairs is the regulator a New Zealand punter deals with on the betting side, and its public statements on the 2025 change are explicit: unlicensed providers were told to withdraw with immediate effect. There is no licensing route for another bookmaker, because there is only one lawful operator. There is no licence register for betting, for the same reason. The punter who wants to verify a brand can verify only one fact: is the brand TAB NZ? If yes, the bet is lawful. If not, the bet is offered in breach of section 74AAA, and the operator, not the punter, is on the wrong side of the law.

What is allowed under the law

• Betting with TAB NZ through the TAB app, the Betcha app, or the tab.co.nz and betcha.co.nz websites.
• Pool betting (tote) and fixed-odds betting on racing, with the full set of bet types TAB NZ’s rules define.
• Fixed-odds sports betting on the events TAB NZ lists in its sportsbook.
• Live betting in the TAB and Betcha apps, on the events and markets TAB NZ offers in-play.
• Multis and same-game multis built from the legs TAB NZ exposes.

What is not allowed under the law

• Any other bookmaker, anywhere in the world, taking a sports or racing bet from a person in New Zealand.
• Any New Zealand-based agent, affiliate or payment service acting as the New Zealand leg of an offshore bookmaker.
• An offshore bookmaker running New Zealand-dollar accounts, advertising in New Zealand, or using payment channels it knows serve New Zealand residents.
• Greyhound bets with anyone other than TAB NZ from 1 August 2026.

What is in a grey area, and the page says so

Whether esports betting is ‘sports betting’ under the Racing Industry Act 2020 remains open. TAB NZ’s published markets are the working answer, and the law catches up to that answer in due course.

• Whether virtual (computer-simulated) sport is “sports betting” or “casino gambling” is treated by the 2026 online casino law as casino gambling, which is a separate licence.
• No statutory rule on the use of a VPN to reach an offshore site was found. The law targets the operator; nothing in the section says a punter using a VPN to place a bet commits an offence.

Safer gambling: the tools TAB NZ builds in, and what the offshore field does not

The Gambling Act 2003 puts the harm-minimisation duty on the operator, and TAB NZ publishes its tools in both the TAB and Betcha apps. The three a punter must know are deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion. A deposit limit caps what the punter can load into the wallet across a chosen window — daily, weekly, or monthly. A time-out is a short break: a chosen number of days or weeks in which the account is locked. A self-exclusion is the longer version: six months, a year, or longer, with the account closed for that period and the exclusion applying across both TAB and Betcha at once.

A punter who sets a self-exclusion on TAB cannot open a Betcha account to bypass it. The exclusion is set on the identity, not the storefront, and the two apps share the same customer file. This is one of the few concrete differences between the two brands on the player-protection side, and it is the one that matters most.

The TAB and Betcha app listings both publish the free Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 and, on the TAB listing, the text line 8006. These are New Zealand services, run by Safer Gambling Aotearoa, and they are the line a punter or a family member can call when the betting has gone past the point the punter wanted it to reach. The helpline is free, runs 24/7, and is the same number whether the question is about TAB, Betcha, an offshore site, or a pokies room in a hotel.

There is no single national online-betting exclusion register. The exclusion register the 2026 online casino law will require covers online casinos only, and it does not extend to the betting duopoly. The duopoly’s own cross-brand exclusion is the working model, and it is the one a punter who wants to stop must use first.

What the offshore field does, in the same terms

The offshore operators carry their own responsible-gambling pages. Some are thorough. Some are not. None of them is built to a New Zealand harm-minimisation standard, none of them is connected to the New Zealand helpline, and none of them will close a Betcha account or a TAB account on a New Zealand self-exclusion request, because they do not have those accounts to close. A punter who self-excludes from TAB and then opens an offshore account is using a different system with a different self-exclusion list, run by a different authority, in a different time zone.

The Department of Internal Affairs funds the Problem Gambling Levy, paid by operators, at 0.74% of gross profits from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028. The levy pays for the harm-minimisation services and the helpline a New Zealand punter reaches. Offshore operators do not pay it. The service is there; the contribution is not.

Bonuses and free bets: what TAB NZ actually offers, and why the marketing words mislead

A punter reading “free bet” or “bonus bet” on a betting app’s promotional page is reading a marketing word with a specific, narrow meaning in the betting industry. The stake is usually not returned with the win. A $10 free bet at $3.00 odds returns $30 in profit, not $40 in total — the $10 is the bookmaker’s cost, and the bookmaker is not paying it back. A “risk-free” bet refunded as a free bet is not a refund in money; it is the same offer under a different name. A “boosted odds” promotion is a one-off price the bookmaker pays out at its own quoted number, with the same stake-not-returned logic if the bet loses. A “100% bonus” doubles the deposit in bonus money, and the bonus money comes with a turnover requirement that takes a volume of betting to clear.

TAB NZ’s published welcome offer is a Bonus Cash bundle that can be split across multiple bets, with 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 terms apply, and the punter must read them, because the difference between Bonus Cash that returns the stake and Bonus Cash that does not is the difference between a $50 win and a $50 win minus the original $50 bonus. The full conditions sit on TAB NZ’s own terms page, and the page describes them only as the operator states them.

The point of the welcome offer is to anchor a punter’s first week on the app, and the point of the reload offer is to anchor the next one. The arithmetic underneath is the same as the offshore field: a turnover requirement times a minimum price per leg, with a deadline, and a cap on what the bonus pays out. The punter who does the arithmetic on the offer before claiming it is the punter who knows what the offer actually costs.

Why “free” is the wrong word

No betting offer is free. The cost is in the turnover — the volume of betting the punter has to do to clear the bonus — and the margin of the market the punter is betting into. The offer pays out at the end of a sequence, and the sequence is priced. A punter who bets only at minimum stake to clear the bonus is paying the margin of the market on every bet, which is a real cost, and the offer’s headline value is the offset. Whether the offset is worth the cost is a calculation the punter does before the first bet, not after.

The bookmaker’s margin is the share of every dollar bet on a market that the bookmaker keeps, on average, over a large number of bets. The smaller the margin, the more the punter keeps, on average, from the same betting volume. A 5% margin is a market that returns 95% of stake to punters, on average, before the offer. A 10% margin is a market that returns 90%. The offer’s headline value is the same in both cases; the cost of clearing it is not.

Why TAB NZ’s offers are the lawful ones to compare

A New Zealand punter’s comparison is between the TAB and Betcha offers and the published offers of the offshore field the punter is choosing not to use. The TAB and Betcha offers are the only ones that sit inside a New Zealand law-compliant relationship, with New Zealand safer-betting tools and a New Zealand complaints route. The offshore offers sit inside a different legal relationship, with a different set of consumer safeguards, and the punter’s first decision is whether to take the offshore offer at all. The page describes both so the comparison is real, and the verdict on the offshore offers is in the operator review below.

The mobile experience: what makes a betting app good

A punter’s experience of a betting app is built from a handful of moments: the search, the bet slip, the deposit, the live market, the cash-out, the withdrawal. Each of these has a mobile version, and each one is a place where a well-built app earns its reputation and a poorly-built one loses it.

Search and navigation

The best apps let a punter find a market in three taps from the home screen. TAB and Betcha both run a sport-by-sport navigation, with the racing product leading on TAB and the sports product leading on Betcha. The offshore apps typically run a global sportsbook with a search bar, a “popular” tab, and a collapsible A-Z list. The depth of the menu is the difference: the more leagues the app lists, the longer the menu, the more a punter needs the search.

The bet slip

A bet slip is the punter’s working surface. The mobile bet slip needs to handle singles, multis, same-game multis, and each-way in the same place, with the stake editable, the return live, and the odds updating as the market moves. TAB and Betcha run a slip that supports fixed-odds and tote bets, with the place extra option on selected races. The offshore apps add the same in a slightly different layout, with a feature set that often includes bet builders — a market the punter constructs from a list of player props on a single event.

Live betting

Live betting on a mobile app is the in-play markets the operator exposes, the speed at which the prices update, and the cash-out button. TAB and Betcha offer live betting on the events their sportsbook lists, with a Trackside live feed on the racing side. The offshore apps run a deeper in-play product on football, tennis and basketball, with prices that update every few seconds and a cash-out button on most markets. The difference is the depth of the in-play menu, which is wider offshore, and the live race streaming, which is the TAB app’s own.

Deposits and withdrawals

The TAB app uses a simplified wallet with New Zealand payment methods — debit card, bank transfer, POLi, the methods the operator publishes in its terms. The offshore apps run a wider cashier, with credit cards, e-wallets, prepaid vouchers, and, on the crypto-friendly end of the list, Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and a range of altcoins. The wider cashier is a real feature; the absence of a New Zealand bank in the loop is a real cost, because the payout trail is harder to reconstruct if a dispute arises.

Account tools

Deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion, reality checks, session reminders, the safer-betting features. The TAB and Betcha apps run all three of the first set, with the exclusion applying across both brands. The offshore apps run their own versions, with the same set of tools in most cases and a New Zealand self-exclusion service absent in all of them.

How to read the operator comparison

The page’s operator ranking covers ten brands: the two TAB NZ online brands first, then eight offshore bookmakers a New Zealand punter is likely to meet. The ranking is a comparison, not a recommendation, and the legal status of each brand is its first column. The two TAB NZ brands are lawful in New Zealand; the eight offshore brands are not. The rest of the columns describe what each operator offers and what its own terms say, in the words the operator uses.

The table is short on prices and margins on purpose. The punter reading the table is not deciding between a 5% margin and a 6% margin on a single market; the punter is deciding whether to install a lawful app or an unlawful one. The columns that matter for that decision are the lawful-status column, the product column, the safer-betting column, and the complaints-route column. The comparison below is built around those four.

The columns a punter needs from the table are the lawful-status column first, the product column second, and the safer-betting and complaints column third. The two TAB NZ brands are the only ones that pass the first column. The offshore brands pass the second column on different points — RTbet and FunBet on the international sportsbook, 22Bet on the brand’s overall depth, Rooster.bet and Winz.io on the crypto cashier, Golden Panda on the breadth of verticals, BillyBets on the live chat, Alawin on the simpler terms. None of them passes the third column on a New Zealand punter’s terms.

The two lawful New Zealand apps in detail

TAB

TAB is the older of the two online brands of TAB NZ and the one that leads on racing. The app, published as “TAB – Racing & Sports Betting” by New Zealand Racing Board, has been on the New Zealand App Store since 8 September 2014, and the current product is the cumulative result of that long runway. The racing book covers horse, harness and greyhound racing, with the full set of bet types — Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie and Big6 — and the multis and same-game multis that wrap around them. The Place Extra option extends the place window to tenth in selected races, a deeper place market than the standard bookmaker offers.

The sportsbook sits alongside the racing book on the same wallet. The rugby codes lead the menu — rugby union and rugby league first, with the domestic and international menu — then football, basketball, tennis and the wider international set. Live betting is in the app, on the events and markets the operator publishes, and Trackside live race streaming is the in-app feature the App Store listing flags, with the bet slip over the same race feed.

The safer-betting tools are the New Zealand set: deposit limits, time-outs, and self-exclusion, with the exclusion applying across TAB and Betcha at once. The Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 and the text line 8006 are in the app. The minimum age is 18, with a 17+ App Store rating reflecting the same floor.

The welcome offer, as published on the App Store listing, is a Bonus Cash bundle new customers can split across multiple bets, with 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 terms apply, and the difference between Bonus Cash that returns the stake and Bonus Cash that does not is the headline to read.

The verdict. TAB is the lawful New Zealand punter’s full-feature product: the racing depth the market asks for, the sportsbook that covers the codes a New Zealand punter names first, the live race streaming that no offshore operator can offer a New Zealand punter lawfully, and the safer-betting tools built to a New Zealand standard. The 18+ age gate and the New Zealand ID and address verification are the cost of that lawful status, and the punter who can clear them is the punter the product is built for.

Betcha

Betcha is the newer of the two online brands of TAB NZ and the one that leads on sports. The app, “betcha | Sports Betting,” was first released on the New Zealand App Store on 6 August 2024, published by Entain New Zealand Limited. The product underneath is the TAB NZ engine, the same markets, the same bet types, the same multis, the same wallet. The brand positions the app as the sports-betting front door, with the racing product available in the same login and the same wallet.

The App Store listing carries a 17+ age rating and the same 18+ betting age. Safer Betting tools are listed in the app. The Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 sits in the app. The cross-brand self-exclusion with TAB applies here, which means a punter who has set an exclusion on one brand cannot open the other to bypass it. The punter who picks Betcha over TAB is picking the sports-first interface, not a different operator.

The verdict. Betcha is the lawful New Zealand punter’s sports-first interface, with the same product and the same protection as TAB. The choice between the two is a choice of front door, and the punter who wants the racing product in the front of the screen installs TAB; the punter who wants the sports product in the front of the screen installs Betcha. Both are the same operator underneath.

The offshore field in detail

The eight offshore brands in the table are presented in the order the plan sets, with no implied ranking beyond the fact that none of them is lawful in New Zealand. The product descriptions are what each operator’s own published terms say; the New Zealand status is what section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 says; the safer-betting line is what the operator publishes and the gap a New Zealand punter will see.

BillyBets

BillyBets is a casino-led brand with a sportsbook attached, running on a mobile-optimised platform that works on Android and iOS through the browser. The brand’s own description names live chat and a Help Centre, with 24/7 support. The cashier offers New Zealand in the country selector, which is why the brand shows up in a New Zealand search; the only currency filter on the cashier page is Euro, which is a fact a New Zealand punter will meet at the deposit screen.

The verdict. BillyBets is an offshore brand with a casino-led product, a sportsbook attached, and a cashier that takes New Zealand players but settles in Euro by default. The customer support is the strongest feature on the page. The New Zealand protection is absent, the New Zealand complaints route is absent, and the licensing jurisdiction is not named as applying in New Zealand. A New Zealand punter who values the support and the live chat will find a competent product; a New Zealand punter who values the lawful status will not.

Alawin

Alawin runs a casino and sportsbook under an 18+ age policy stated in the operator’s terms. The licensing jurisdiction is not named as applying in New Zealand. The product is the standard offshore combination: a sportsbook, a casino, a live casino, a set of promotions. The minimum age is set at 18, which is the same floor TAB NZ sets, but the standard the operator enforces is the licensing jurisdiction’s, not New Zealand’s.

The verdict. Alawin is a competent offshore brand with a clear 18+ policy. The protection a New Zealand punter expects is not there, the New Zealand complaints route is not there, and the New Zealand harm-minimisation framework does not reach the operator. A New Zealand punter who values the offshore product is choosing a competent brand; a New Zealand punter who values the lawful status is choosing against it.

RTbet

RTbet runs a sportsbook covering football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football and baseball, with live betting and virtual sports. The brand names a Curaçao licence, which gives the holder the right to take bets in the jurisdictions the Curaçao framework covers; it does not hold the right to accept bets in New Zealand.

The verdict. RTbet is a competent offshore sportsbook with a reasonable international menu and a Curaçao licence. The New Zealand protection is absent, the New Zealand complaints route is absent, and the Curaçao framework does not give a New Zealand punter a local remedy.

FunBet

FunBet runs a sportsbook on football, ice hockey, American football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, rugby and baseball, with live betting and a bookmaker described as open 24/7. The licensing jurisdiction is not named as applying in New Zealand. The rugby coverage is the standout on the menu for a New Zealand punter, because it is the code the local punter names first; the operator’s coverage of rugby is wider than the typical offshore bookmaker.

The verdict. FunBet is a competent offshore sportsbook with a wider rugby menu than most of the offshore field.

22Bet

22Bet is the largest of the offshore brands on the page by reach. The brand is operated by TechSolutions Group N.V., a Curaçao company with registration number 144920, under Curaçao licence 8048/JAZ. The same operator runs 20Bet, Bizzo and National Casino, which is a sign of a brand portfolio rather than a single brand. The sportsbook is the wider international menu, with live betting, a multi-live product, and iOS and Android apps.

The verdict. 22Bet is a deep offshore product with a brand portfolio behind it and a Curaçao licence that gives the holder a defined set of consumer safeguards — for Curaçao customers. A New Zealand punter is not a Curaçao customer, and the New Zealand protection is absent.

Rooster.bet

Rooster.bet is operated by Novatrix SRL, a Costa Rica-registered company (registration 3-102-893958), under Tobique Gaming Commission e-gaming licence No. 0000002. The product is a sportsbook and casino, with iOS and Android apps. The Tobique licence is a real licence, issued by a real authority, and it gives the holder the right to take bets in the jurisdiction the commission covers; it does not give the holder the right to take bets from people in New Zealand.

The verdict. Rooster.bet is a competent offshore brand with a Costa Rica operator and a Tobique licence.

Golden Panda

Golden Panda runs a sportsbook with esports and virtual sports, a casino, a live casino, crash games, a rewards programme, cashback, a VIP Club, Golden Goals and Prediction Markets. The product is a single-wallet sportsbook-and-casino with a broad set of verticals.

The verdict. Golden Panda is a broad offshore product with the kind of vertical spread a New Zealand punter will not find on the TAB NZ apps — prediction markets, crash games, a VIP Club.

Winz.io

Winz.io is a crypto-led sportsbook and casino, with the site footer stating Anjouan and Tobique licences. The product is built around a cryptocurrency cashier, with deposits and withdrawals in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and a range of altcoins. The sportsbook and casino share a single wallet, and the Anjouan and Tobique licences permit the licensee to accept wagers in the jurisdictions those authorities cover; neither provides the authorisation for betting in New Zealand.

The verdict. Winz.io is a crypto-led offshore brand with a real licence position behind it. The cryptocurrency cashier is the feature a New Zealand punter with a crypto balance will notice first; the absence of a New Zealand bank in the loop is the feature a New Zealand punter who values a clean payout trail will notice first. The New Zealand protection is absent, the New Zealand complaints route is absent, and the licensing framework does not give a New Zealand punter a local remedy. A New Zealand punter who values the crypto cashier is choosing a competent brand; a New Zealand punter who values the lawful status is choosing against it.

The Entain partnership, and why the duopoly is the shape it is

TAB NZ is a statutory body, established by the Racing Industry Act 2020 to be the sole provider of racing and sports betting in New Zealand. The 2023 partnership with Entain is the operating agreement that makes the product: Entain runs the TAB business under a 25-year agreement, with a 50/50 share of gross profits, at least $150m a year going to TAB NZ for the first five years, and a one-off $100m payment Entain pledged to the racing sector. The agreement is the reason the TAB and Betcha apps run on the same engine, the same wallet, and the same cross-brand exclusion.

The partnership is also the reason the duopoly is the shape it is. Entain is the technology partner behind the two apps, and the technology is the one the New Zealand punter installs. The duopoly is not a competitive market; it is a single product on two storefronts, with the statutory protection the Racing Industry Act 2020 sets, and the operator-level harm-minimisation framework the Gambling Act 2003 sets. A New Zealand punter reading the page must see the duopoly as a single product with two access points, not as two products to compare.

The numbers every punter must know

A punter who understands the numbers behind the betting market is a punter who understands the cost of the bet itself.

The margin

A bookmaker’s margin is the share of every dollar bet on a market that the bookmaker keeps, on average, over a large number of bets. It is the difference between the “true” odds of an event and the odds the bookmaker quotes, summed across every outcome of the market. A 5% margin is a market that returns 95% of stake to punters, on average; a 10% margin is a market that returns 90%. The margin is in the price, on every market, on every bookmaker, and the punter who bets into a market with a 10% margin is paying twice the cost the punter is paying into a 5% market, on average, on the same volume of betting.

A punter who wants to read a margin in the prices has to invert the odds and add them together. For a two-outcome market with decimal odds of 1.91 and 1.91, the sum is 1.047; the payout share is 0.955; the margin is 0.045, or 4.5%. For a three-outcome 1X2 market with odds of 2.10, 3.40 and 3.60, the sum of the inverses is 0.476 + 0.294 + 0.278 = 1.048; the payout share is 0.954; the margin is 0.046, or 4.6%. The arithmetic is the same in both cases: invert each price, add them up, the sum is greater than 1, the excess is the margin.

The margin is what the bookmaker keeps, on average. It is not a fee the punter pays up front; it is the difference between what the punter wagers and what the punter wins, on average, over a large number of bets. The punter who bets once and wins keeps the full price; the punter who bets a hundred times at the same margin keeps the price minus the margin, on average. The arithmetic is the same offshore, the arithmetic is the same on TAB NZ, and the arithmetic is the same in every market the punter looks at.

The payout

A payout is what a winning bet returns, and the formula is the same on every bookmaker. Return is stake times odds; net profit is stake times (odds minus 1). A $10 bet at $3.00 returns $30 in profit and $40 in total; a $10 bet at $1.50 returns $5 in profit and $15 in total. For a combination bet, the odds of the legs multiply into one price: three legs at $2.00, $2.00 and $2.00 give a combined price of $8.00, and a $10 stake at the combined price returns $80 in profit and $90 in total. The arithmetic is the same on every bookmaker; the difference is the legs the punter picks and the margin the bookmaker builds into each leg.

The combined price of a multi is the source of the multi’s appeal. Three $2.00 legs on three different events, with a margin of 5% on each, give a combined price of $8.00 with a margin of about 14% across the three. The punter is paying for the multiplied price, and the multiplied price carries the multiplied margin. A multi is a more expensive bet to place than a single, on average, for the same set of outcomes.

The bonus

A bonus is a credit the bookmaker gives the punter, with a turnover requirement that takes a volume of betting to clear. A $50 bonus with a 5x turnover on the bonus is a $250 volume of betting the punter has to do before the bonus becomes withdrawable. Bets at or above a minimum price — usually $1.50 or $2.00 — count toward the turnover; bets below the minimum price do not. The punter who bets only at minimum stake to clear the bonus is paying the margin of the market on every bet, which is a real cost, and the offer’s headline value is the offset. Whether the offset is worth the cost is a calculation the punter does before the first bet, not after.

A free bet is a different product. The stake is not returned with the win. A $10 free bet at $3.00 returns $30 in profit, not $40 in total. A “risk-free” bet refunded as a free bet is the same offer under a different name, and the punter who reads the marketing word and ignores the small print pays for the marketing with the offer’s actual value. The arithmetic is the same on every bookmaker; the difference is the offer’s headline, the offer’s terms, and the punter’s willingness to read them.

What to check before you place a bet

On TAB NZ

That the account is verified with a New Zealand ID and address, and that the 18+ age gate has cleared. That the deposit method is one TAB NZ’s terms accept, and that the deposit limit is set to a number the punter can clear without the betting going past it. That the safer-betting tools are switched on — deposit limit, time-out if needed, self-exclusion if needed. That the bonus terms have been read, and the turnover requirement, the minimum price, and the deadline are known. That the bet is one the punter has thought about, with a stake the punter can afford to lose, and an outcome the punter can take either way.

On an offshore site

That the punter has read the Department of Internal Affairs’ warning about offshore operators — unspent credits that may not come back, large wins that may not be paid, no local complaints route, minimal consumer safeguards. That the licensing jurisdiction is named in the operator’s terms, and that the licence number is verifiable on the licensing authority’s register. That the bonus terms are read, with the turnover, the minimum price, and the deadline. That the safer-betting tools are switched on, with the understanding that the operator’s own tools are not the New Zealand set. That the punter is not using a New Zealand bank account, a New Zealand debit card, or a New Zealand address to fund the account, because the law targets the operator on the same fact.

The choice, in summary

A New Zealand punter’s first decision is not which bookmaker to install. It is whether to install a lawful app or an unlawful one. The lawful path is short: TAB, Betcha, or both. The unlawful path is long, and the products on it are often better, and the protection on it is absent, and the punter who walks it is making a deliberate choice to do so.

The punter who installs TAB and Betcha is choosing the lawful duopoly, with the New Zealand safer-betting tools, the New Zealand complaints route, the Entain-built product, and the racing depth the New Zealand market asks for. The punter who installs an offshore app is choosing a competent product, a real licence in a different jurisdiction, and a different set of consumer safeguards. The punter who installs both is using the TAB apps for the racing product and the New Zealand safer-betting tools, and the offshore apps for the international sportsbook and the in-play depth the TAB apps do not cover. The page does not recommend the third path; it describes it, because the punter who chooses it is making a choice the page must be honest about.

The duopoly is the shape of the New Zealand market. The duopoly is not going to change in 2026, and the punter who waits for it to change is waiting for a law that the current Parliament is not drafting. The punter who bets in New Zealand in 2026 is betting with TAB NZ, through TAB or Betcha, with the tools the law requires, in the legal frame the law sets. The punter who bets offshore is taking the risk the law puts on the operator, with the protection the operator’s home jurisdiction provides, and with the understanding that the Department of Internal Affairs has said what it has said.

Frequently asked questions

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

TAB NZ, and only TAB NZ. The Racing Industry Act 2020 names TAB NZ as the sole lawful provider; the 2025 amendment added section 74AAA, in force from 28 June 2025, which bars any other operator from taking sports or racing bets from a person in New Zealand. The two online brands of TAB NZ are TAB and Betcha; both are the same operator group and share the same product, the same wallet, and the same cross-brand self-exclusion. There is no licence register for betting in New Zealand because there is only one lawful operator.

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

Return is stake times odds. A $10 bet at decimal odds of $3.00 returns $30 in profit and $40 in total. A $10 bet at $1.50 returns $5 in profit and $15 in total. For a combination bet, the odds of the legs multiply into one price: three legs at $2.00 each give a combined price of $8.00, and a $10 stake at the combined price returns $80 in profit and $90 in total. The arithmetic is the same on every bookmaker; the difference is the legs the punter picks and the margin the bookmaker builds into each leg.

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

A bookmaker’s margin is the share of every dollar bet on a market that the bookmaker keeps, on average, over a large number of bets. It is calculated by inverting each price in the market, adding them together, and subtracting the sum from one. A two-outcome market with both sides priced at $1.91 has a margin of about 4.5%; a three-outcome 1X2 market with prices of $2.10, $3.40 and $3.60 has a margin of about 4.6%. The smaller the margin, the more the punter keeps, on average, from the same betting volume. The margin is in the price, on every market, on every bookmaker.

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

The lawful status of the bet. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 puts the operator on the wrong side of the law, and the Department of Internal Affairs’ published warnings name the practical consequences: unspent credits that may not be returned, large wins that may not be paid, no New Zealand complaints route, and minimal consumer safeguards in the home jurisdiction. The player is not criminalised by section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, but the leverage a New Zealand punter has on a Curaçao, Anjouan, Tobique or Comoros operator is the leverage that jurisdiction’s regulator provides, which is not the leverage the Department of Internal Affairs provides on TAB NZ.

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

Eighteen. The Racing Industry Act 2020 makes betting under 18 an offence, and TAB NZ enforces the floor on its account opening, with a 17+ App Store rating reflecting the same minimum. Account opening at TAB NZ requires a verified New Zealand address and ID, and the verification is the gate the safer-betting tools sit behind. Land-based casinos in New Zealand have a separate 20+ age gate, and the two floors are not the same; the punter who has cleared the casino gate is not automatically cleared for the TAB account.

Are betting winnings taxed in New Zealand?

For most recreational punters, no. 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 standard advice — Inland Revenue’s own — is to consult Inland Revenue or an accountant, because the line between recreational and business betting is a fact-specific line. The operator side carries its own duties: TAB NZ pays the Problem Gambling Levy at 0.74% of gross profits, and offshore operators supplying New Zealand residents pay online gambling duty on their profits. None of this makes an offshore offer lawful; the duty is on the operator’s profits, not on the operator’s right to take the bet.

Published by the Nzbankbets team.