New Zealand betting offers in 2026: the only legal pair, and what each one gives a punter
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New Zealand has collapsed its sports and racing betting market down to a single operator. Since the Racing Industry Amendment Act took effect on 28 June 2025, only TAB NZ and its online sister brand Betcha may take online racing or sports bets from a person in New Zealand, regardless of where that bookmaker is incorporated or where the website is hosted. The Department of Internal Affairs told unlicensed providers to withdraw with immediate effect. A market of dozens of brands has, in a single stroke, become a duopoly of two brands run by the same group, and every welcome offer, free-bet headline and boosted-odds message a New Zealand reader sees from any other name is, by statute, on the wrong side of the law.
This page is written from the angle of what a betting offer costs the reader — the turnover, the minimum odds, the missing stake, the deadline, the cap on winnings. New Zealand’s setup is unusual enough that the comparison practically writes itself: there is one lawful domestic operator group on one side, and a long list of offshore brands that name a Curaçao, Anjouan or Comoros licence on the other. None of those licences gives a right to take bets from a New Zealand resident. The lawful side carries New Zealand harm-minimisation tools, a complaints route through the Gambling Commission and a verified-identity onboarding flow. The unlawful side carries none of those.
Current as of October 30, 2026. Verified against the Racing Industry Act 2020 (as amended by the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025), the Gambling Act 2003 and TAB NZ’s published terms.
The shape of the New Zealand betting market
The first thing to get straight is the geometry. There is not a “New Zealand betting market” in the conventional sense. There is one statutorily named operator, TAB New Zealand, trading through two online brands — TAB and Betcha — plus the retail TAB outlets. Every other brand a reader encounters is operating offshore, has no right to accept a New Zealand customer, and provides no New Zealand-regulated harm-minimisation framework if something goes wrong.
TAB NZ itself is run under a 25-year operating agreement signed in 2023 with Entain, the FTSE-listed gambling group. Entain holds a 50/50 share of gross profits with TAB NZ. The contract guarantees TAB NZ at least $150 million a year for the first five years, and Entain pledged a one-off $100 million payment to the racing sector when the arrangement was sealed. The economic logic of the monopoly is that racing — thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing, the last of these closing from 1 August 2026 — funds itself through the betting take, and a single permitted channel makes that flow of funds straightforward to police and to tax.
A reader looking at a “welcome offer” page is accordingly looking at two product surfaces sharing one wallet. TAB and Betcha are not rivals. They sit on the same account infrastructure, the same self-exclusion settings and the same KYC checks; they differentiate on product feel rather than on odds or margins. Betcha is the louder, more social of the two — a “Bet Social” feed, a “Playbook” of match previews, a “Toolbox” of daily odds boosts — and TAB is the canonical, racing-leaning surface. The brand a punter chooses is mostly about taste.
Offshore brands fill the rest of this page only because New Zealand players meet them. They are not a parallel market. The law targets the operator, not the player — section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, inserted in 2025, says an individual cannot be convicted for placing a bet with an offshore betting operator — but the operator’s breach is real and the published consumer safeguards are not. The list further down names ten brands a reader may have heard of and rates each on the criteria the table below carries. None of them is recommended; each is what it is.
How the duopoly works in practice
Open a TAB or Betcha account and the friction is the same on both surfaces. Identity is checked against a verified New Zealand address. The minimum age for TAB NZ betting is 18 (betting under 18 is an offence under section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020); the land-based casino age is 20 and the two must never be merged. Once in, deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion are reachable in-app and apply across both brands.
What changes between TAB and Betcha is product shape. TAB’s multi bet product is the senior one: Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, one-tap Popular Multis and a Place Extra option that lets a punter back a runner to finish as far back as tenth in selected races — niche racing products with long odds tails. Betcha’s headliner is the Multi Builder, which lets a punter construct a multi from one fixture or across fixtures, copy a trending multi from another punter’s feed and track live legs as they come in. Same Game Multis are layered into a grid view for fast construction.
Both brands sit on the same Bonus Cash wallet. The mechanics of “Bonus Cash” are the mechanics of a free bet whose stake is not given back with a win, which is the universal New Zealand offer type — there is no “deposit bonus” structure, no “100% match” headline. The Mega Multi promotion is a typical shape: a multi of four or more legs is rewarded with up to $50 in Bonus Cash if the multi falls short by a set number of legs. The fine print lives in the app’s terms, and the size of the Bonus Cash and the qualifying window can change without notice, the way all promotional terms can.
A reader who wants the cheapest possible path to a TAB NZ account will care less about which brand they sign up to than about which features they actually use. A racing-only punter finds more depth on tab.co.nz. A multi-bettor who wants social proof and copyable multis finds more on Betcha. Both run on the same data and the same wallet, so the choice is about feel.
What the offshore shelf looks like
The names below are not recommendations. They are listed because a New Zealand reader meets them — through affiliate pages, through friends’ links, through Google results that ignore the legal line. Each is described by what its own terms state, and each is marked “not licensed in New Zealand” to make plain that none of them may lawfully accept a New Zealand customer. The cluster has a recognisable shape: Curaçao, Anjouan and Comoros licences, crypto-friendly cashier pages, multi-sport coverage running from football into esports into novelty markets, and a public absence of harm-minimisation features that meet the New Zealand norm.
Curaçao is the most common licence among them. Roobet (Raw Entertainment B.V., licence OGL/2024/687/0427) is one example; RTbet names Curaçao as well. Anjouan turns up on Sportaza (licence ALSI-202606064-FI2). Comoros turns up on BetNinja. None of these permits a New Zealand bet, and a Curaçao or Anjouan licence gives no New Zealand consumer-protection rights even if a dispute opened. The Games of Chance Control Authority in Curaçao supervises its own licence holders for breaches of Curaçao law; it does not police a New Zealand contract.
The right framing of an offshore brand for a New Zealand reader is this: a product that it is unlawful under section 74AAA for the operator to provide, with no recourse to the New Zealand regulator, no guaranteed payout under New Zealand insolvency law, and no harm-minimisation framework that meets the local norm. Some of them are competent operators in their own markets; that is not the point. New Zealand law, in its current shape, is not interested in their competence.
The statute a New Zealand punter is sitting under
Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, inserted by the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025, says 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 incorporated or resident. The change took effect on 28 June 2025 and brought every active offshore brand serving New Zealand customers inside the prohibition overnight. The Department of Internal Affairs, the regulator under the Gambling Act 2003 and the body that monitors compliance with section 92A of the Racing Industry Act, told providers serving New Zealand to withdraw with immediate effect. There is no formal prosecution record of an offshore bookmaker under section 74AAA, and no source sets the operator-side penalty.
The monopoly is narrower than it sounds. The Racing Industry Act 2020 covers racing and sports betting — fixed odds and pool (tote) bets — and nothing else. Online casino is the subject of the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026, which licenses a separate class of online casinos (TAB NZ itself won the right to apply for one) and includes its own inducement cap. The two regimes do not merge: a $100 / 200% inducement cap that sits in casino law is not a cap on betting bonuses, and betting offers are not bounded by it. What bounds betting offers is TAB NZ’s own terms and the practical size of a Bonus Cash credit.
The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 also classifies virtual sports — computer-simulated racing or football — as casino gambling for the purpose of that Act. The statute does not definitively say whether an esports market counts as sports betting under the Racing Industry Act; that question is open. TAB NZ takes some esports markets; offshore brands take many more.
Greyhound racing closes in stages from 1 August 2026. From that date, no New Zealand-licensed operator may take bets on greyhound races and the offshore prohibition extends to greyhound markets too. New Zealand-based customers who bet greyhounds have a short runway to move their action onto another code or to take a step back.
There is no statutory payment rule on betting accounts. Card, bank transfer and POLi-style services are TAB NZ’s terms, not the law’s, and those terms shift on operator policy. Crypto use is not addressed in the Racing Industry Act or in the Gambling Act; account opening at TAB NZ requires a verified New Zealand address, which is enough to defeat anonymous crypto-funded accounts in practice. 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. New Zealand law does not block bookmaker sites; the obligation to refuse a New Zealand customer sits on the operator.
Tax and revenue from the bettor’s side
For a recreational punter, Inland Revenue guidance is that gambling winnings are generally not taxable. 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 — that is general information, not tax advice.
The operator side is not the bettor’s concern for tax purposes, but it is worth naming because it explains the architecture. TAB NZ pays the Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74% (in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028) into harm-minimisation funding. Overseas operators supplying New Zealand residents pay online gambling duty of 12% of profits since 1 July 2024, rising to 16% from 1 January 2027. Paying online gambling duty does not make an offer lawful, and the page makes no use of the duty as an endorsement. The point-of-consumption charge on offshore racing and sports bets ceased on 30 June 2026, in line with the broader monopoly.
Safer gambling tools and the limits of self-help
The honest framing of TAB NZ’s safer-gambling tools is that they are real, they are reachable and they cover most of what a typical harm-minimisation framework asks for. They are not the limit of what a punter with a problem can do, and they are not a substitute for getting help.
Inside TAB and Betcha, the in-app safe-gambling menu carries deposit limits, time-outs (cooling-off periods of a chosen length) and self-exclusion. An exclusion applies across both TAB NZ brands because the two brands share one account infrastructure. A punter who excludes through Betcha is excluded through TAB, and a punter who excludes through TAB is excluded through Betcha. There is no single national online-betting exclusion register; the register the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 will require is for online casinos only, and it does not extend to betting.
A punter who wants to talk to someone independent of TAB NZ reaches the free Gambling Helpline on 0800 654 655 or by text on 8006. Both are listed in the TAB and Betcha apps. The Gambling Helpline is run by Safer Gambling Aotearoa, and the service is independent of any operator. It is the right first call if a punter is concerned about their own play or about the play of someone close to them. The Advertising Standards Authority’s Gambling Advertising Code is the other front: ads must not target children (under 14) or young people (14 to under 18), judged by context, appeal and expected audience (25% or more of the audience counts as significant where accurate data exists), must not encourage harm and must be truthful with terms available. There is no New Zealand equivalent of a “whistle-to-whistle” broadcast ban.
Problem-gambling funding is not loose change. The Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74% flows from TAB NZ’s take into treatment services, public-health messaging and research. The levy is in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028, which is the same window the new monopoly covers, and that funding is part of what the monopoly’s economics buys. A reader who wonders why a national problem-gambling apparatus exists at all — and why offshore brands find no place inside it — is looking at the answer.
A reasonable self-protection routine
The practical order of operations is short. Start with the deposit limit: TAB NZ’s deposit limit is the bettor’s own ceiling, settable in the app, applied before any further play. Use it on day one, before a session rather than after one. Pair the deposit limit with a time-out that triggers at a chosen hour, so that a tired evening does not turn into a long one. If those controls begin to feel like friction rather than help, that is the moment to escalate to self-exclusion and to call the Gambling Helpline.
Self-exclusion is not a ban from gambling in general. It is a ban from TAB NZ’s surfaces. The offshore brands listed below are not part of the self-exclusion framework, which is the structural reason offshore play is harder to manage, and one of the reasons the law lands on the operator rather than the bettor.
A punter who feels they are placing bets at work, hiding bets from family, chasing losses or borrowing to bet has crossed into territory where self-help tools are no longer the right next move. The Gambling Helpline is the next step. The helpline is free and confidential; that is what it is for.
How to read a New Zealand offer in its own terms
The shape of a TAB NZ offer is unusual against a global norm. There is no “100% deposit bonus” headline, no wagering multiplier in the European sense, no “free spins” structure. The native unit is Bonus Cash, which is a free bet whose stake is not paid back with a win. New TAB NZ customers can receive Bonus Cash that can be split across multiple bets, which is the same as saying they receive it as a notional stake on a multi bet of their choosing. The Mega Multi promotion — up to $50 in Bonus Cash when a multi of four or more legs falls short by a set number of legs — illustrates the shape: a refund-style offer, but refunded as Bonus Cash, not as cash.
A punter who has only ever seen deposit bonuses elsewhere will read “Bonus Cash” and assume it is the same thing. It is not. A deposit bonus credits a multiple of the deposit that has to be turned over at the bookmaker’s terms before it can be withdrawn. Bonus Cash is a free bet stake that pays out only the profit if the bet wins, and disappears if the bet loses. The arithmetic matters. A $50 Bonus Cash staked at decimal odds of 3.00 returns $100 in profit; the bonus stake is not added back. A cashback bonus behaves the same: the bonus comes in the form of a stake on the next bet, not as money credited to the wallet.
What a Bonus Cash credit is worth in plain maths
The theory behind a free-bet stake is straightforward, and the page works it out because the workings matter more than the headline. A free-bet stake is not paid back with a win, so its expected value depends on the edge the punter can find on the bet they use it on. Assume an illustrative two-way market priced at decimal odds of 1.90 on each side. The payout share of that market is 1 / (1/1.90 + 1/1.90) = 0.95, meaning 95 cents of every dollar bet is returned to bettors across the two outcomes and the bookmaker keeps 5% as margin. The value of a $50 Bonus Cash staked at decimal odds of 1.90 is thus $50 × (1.90 − 1) / 1.90 × 0.95 = $50 × 0.474 × 0.95 ≈ $22.50. The bonus is worth roughly $22.50 in expected profit, not $50 — and the gap between $50 face and $22.50 expected is the haircut the punter takes when the stake is not paid back. Use it on a longer-priced selection and the value rises with the odds; use it on a short-priced favourite and the value falls. Reading “up to $50 Bonus Cash” as “$50 in the punter’s pocket” is the misread this arithmetic corrects.
The same calculation carries a wider lesson. Any free-bet-style offer, on any platform, has a haircut between its face value and its expected return. The haircut grows as the odds shrink, because the missing stake is a bigger share of a smaller profit. Putting a $50 Bonus Cash on a 1.20 favourite returns about $4 in expected profit; putting it on a 6.00 long shot returns about $40. A promotion shaped like a refund on a multi is most attractive at the long-odds end of the qualifying window, and least attractive at the short-odds end. The marketing language does not draw that line; the maths does.
Why the turnover language is missing
There is no New Zealand rule on bonus size or wagering terms, because the wagering-terms regime that applies to overseas markets — the 5x-through turnover on a deposit bonus, the 1.80 minimum odds, the seven-day window — was built for a market in which many bookmakers compete for a single punter’s deposit. New Zealand has one operator; the regime is unnecessary. The thing it leaves out is the cliff edge a punter reads in overseas T&Cs (“wager 5x at minimum odds 1.80 within seven days”): there is no cliff edge, but there is also no cushion.
What a New Zealand punter reads in TAB NZ’s terms instead is the smaller print of a promotion: the qualifying bet type, the qualifying window, the markets that count, the cap on Bonus Cash use per bet, the list of bet types that do not qualify (cashed-out bets typically, voided selections typically, certain futures markets occasionally). This is a different kind of fine print to a turnover multiplier but it is fine print all the same, and a punter who clicks “claim” without reading it is the punter who discovers the cap after the bet is struck. Reading the promotion’s “How it works” tab once before placing the first qualifying bet costs two minutes; it saves an afternoon.
What an offshore welcome offer looks like, by contrast
The offshore shelf speaks a different language, and a New Zealand reader who drifts into it will be reading different promises by different authors. The shape is recognisable across most of them: a 100% deposit bonus up to a stated cap (often €100 or $200), a certain number of free spins on a slot game, sometimes a separate sportsbook welcome structured as a free bet or as a refund on a losing first bet, and a small set of bonus codes or “no code” buttons. Almost all of them are gated by a turnover multiple, a minimum odds rule, a deadline and an exclusion list. The bonus size looks larger than a TAB NZ Bonus Cash credit because it is the headline of a deposit match, not the face value of a non-returnable stake. The required turnover is also larger.
There are conditions on these promotions that materially change their value. A 100% bonus up to €100 with a 5x wagering requirement on the bonus at minimum odds of 1.50 means a punter has to place €500 in qualifying bets before any of the bonus is withdrawable. A refund-on-losing-first-bet promotion refunded as a free bet, not as cash, carries the same haircut as a TAB NZ Bonus Cash credit. The combination of these conditions is the reason the promotion looks generous in the banner and tightens up at the cashier; the punter who does not read the T&Cs discovers the tightening with their own money.
Worse still, the offshore T&Cs apply to a New Zealand player who has no path to New Zealand dispute resolution if a dispute opens. A punt that ought to have paid €220 returns €0 because the bonus was “abused” by a betting pattern the bonus T&Cs prohibited; the player has no New Zealand regulator to write to, the Curaçao or Anjouan regulator is unlikely to intervene on a small-stakes dispute, and the chargeback route through the issuing bank is uncertain for crypto-funded deposits. That is the second-order cost of an offshore welcome offer: the marginal advantage in headline bonus size is set against a structural absence of recourse.
The full landscape: who offers what under what licence
The table below lists ten brands a New Zealand reader may meet and rates each on three matters: the licence status in New Zealand, what the operator’s own terms state on the bonus structure or product, and the operational specifics that matter to a punter. The brands TAB and Betcha sit at the top of the table because they are the only two lawful online brands in New Zealand; the rest of the shelf is offshore. The table is a landscape, not a ranking.
| Brand | New Zealand status | What the operator’s own terms state |
|---|---|---|
| TAB | TAB NZ brand — lawful under section 74AAA | Bonus Cash offer for new customers; Bonus Cash can be split across multiple bets; Mega Multi promotion refunds up to $50 in Bonus Cash when a multi of four or more legs falls short by a set number of legs; Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, Popular Multis and Place Extra up to tenth place |
| Betcha | TAB NZ brand — lawful under section 74AAA | Bonus Cash offer for new customers; Multi Builder with copy-trending-multis and live-leg tracking; Same Game Multi grid; daily Toolbox of odds boosts and bet insurance tools; Bet Social feed and Playbook of tips and match analysis |
| BillyBets | Not licensed in New Zealand | Three odds formats on offer (Decimal, American, Fractional); sports cashback and reload bonuses; a coin shop exchanging activity-earned coins for free bets and free spins; five-level VIP programme |
| Telbet | Not licensed in New Zealand | Crypto casino and sportsbook; welcome offer of 200% up to 1 BTC plus 50 free spins and a 5 USDT free bet (Russian-language site); in-play betting and a My Bets page; responsible-gambling and AML policies published separately |
| RTbet | Not licensed in New Zealand | Curaçao licence; minimum stake per event of 0.5 in the customer’s currency; multi-bets and system bets capped at 30 selections |
| Glorion | Not licensed in New Zealand | Pre-match and live betting, virtual sports, horse racing, esports; markets grouped into popular, niche, indoor and outdoor sports plus entertainment events such as award shows and elections |
| Spinbara | Not licensed in New Zealand | First deposit bonus of 100% up to €100; sport crypto welcome bonus of 100% up to 200 USDT; casino welcome of 100% up to €500 plus 200 free spins |
| Sportaza | Not licensed in New Zealand | Anjouan licence (ALSI-202606064-FI2); cash-out pre-finalisation; Bet Builder with the rule that a voided selection voids the whole slip; multiples, Asian lines and interval markets at 1, 5, 10 or 15 minute ranges |
| BetNinja | Not licensed in New Zealand | Comoros licence; casino welcome of €1,000 bonus and 100 free spins; sports welcome of 100% match up to €100 on first deposit |
| Roobet | Not licensed in New Zealand | Curaçao licence OGL/2024/687/0427; holder Raw Entertainment B.V., Curaçao registration 157205 |
The table’s structure makes the point plainly. Two rows are the lawful New Zealand shelf; eight rows are the offshore shelf. The offshore T&Cs vary; the New Zealand status does not. A reader scanning the table for a licensed alternative to TAB NZ will find none.
The ten brands at a glance
TAB
The flagship surface of TAB NZ. Strongest on racing — thoroughbred, harness and greyhound (closing from 1 August 2026) — and on multis across the racing and sports schedule. The Same Race Multi, a multi whose legs all come from one race, is the headline racing product; the Same Game Multi and the one-tap Popular Multi are the sports counterparts. Place Extra extends each-way betting out to as far back as tenth in selected races, an unusual depth that few peer products match.
Bonus Cash is the promotional currency. The Mega Multi promotion — up to $50 in Bonus Cash when a multi of four or more legs falls short by a set number of legs — illustrates the offer shape: a refund on a near-miss, not a deposit match. The qualifying conditions sit in the in-app “How it works” tab.
The right closing on TAB is that it is the strongest surface in the country for a racing-led punter who wants deep market coverage, multis with an unusual race-level structure, and full inclusion in New Zealand harm-minimisation tools. The Bonus Cash offers are modest against an international headline-bonus norm; the structural advantage is that the offer sits on a regulated platform with a verified identity and a published complaints path.
Betcha
The louder, more social half of the same account. Betcha’s Multi Builder and Same Game Multi grid are a faster construction tool than TAB’s, built for the kind of punter who keeps several multis active on a busy Saturday. The daily Toolbox delivers odds boosts and bet insurance tools; the Bet Social feed and the Playbook of tips and match analysis sit alongside the betting product. The Multi Builder lets a punter construct a multi from a single fixture or across fixtures, copy a trending multi from another punter’s feed, and track live legs as they settle.
Bonus Cash is the promotional currency and the structure matches TAB’s, since both brands share the same wallet. The 17+ App Store age rating is the legally required minimum (the statutory betting age is 18; the app-store bucket is the next band up).
The right closing on Betcha is that it is the right surface for a multi-bettor who wants speed, social proof and a toolbox of daily boosts, in a market where the alternative is the more racing-heavy tab.co.nz surface. The structural advantage — same wallet, same self-exclusion, same KYC — is the same as TAB’s.
BillyBets
A multi-product brand sitting on a Curaçao licence and offering three odds formats (Decimal at 2.00, American at +100, Fractional at 1/1). Sportsbook cashback and reload bonuses sit beside a coin shop where coins earned through deposits, betting, tournaments and challenges can be exchanged for free bets and free spins, and a five-level VIP programme for higher-volume play. The cashier page lists New Zealand in its country selector but the only currency filter shown is the Euro, which is a tell that a New Zealand punt through BillyBets may run into account-currency friction on the way in.
Not licensed in New Zealand — this offshore site is outside the New Zealand regulatory jurisdiction and lacks local consumer protections.
The right closing on BillyBets is that it is the multi-product, coin-shop-heavy kind of operator that earns its custom elsewhere; in New Zealand the law makes it inaccessible and the cashier’s currency filter reinforces that. A reader who reaches it does so at their own risk and without recourse to New Zealand regulators.
Telbet
A crypto casino and sportsbook with a stated welcome offer of 200% up to 1 BTC plus 50 free spins and a 5 USDT free bet on its Russian-language site. The sportsbook includes in-play betting, a My Bets page and separate sports betting rules, bonus terms and responsible-gambling and AML policies. Crypto-first design means a New Zealand punter is funding in a currency not native to TAB NZ’s wallet, and a New Zealand bank may decline the deposit at the card-acquiring layer regardless.
Not licensed in New Zealand — this offshore site is outside the New Zealand regulatory jurisdiction and lacks local consumer protections.
The right closing on Telbet is that it is a crypto-first operator with an unusually high headline bonus, but the law, the licensing and the lack of New Zealand consumer recourse make it the wrong shelf for a New Zealand punter. The 200%-up-to-1-BTC headline is the kind of number that survives only when it isn’t weighed against the regulatory cost.
RTbet
A multi-product brand named on a Curaçao licence. The table stakes for a New Zealand punter are mechanical: a minimum stake of 0.5 in the customer’s currency per event, multi-bets and system bets capped at 30 selections. Those are sensible business terms for an operator of its kind; they do not change the licence position.
Not licensed in New Zealand — this offshore site is outside the New Zealand regulatory jurisdiction and lacks local consumer protections.
The right closing on RTbet is that it is a lawful Curaçao operator in its own jurisdiction with a reasonable terms book for the multi-bettor, and it has no lawful standing in New Zealand. The minimum stake and 30-leg cap are useful data points for a reader who has heard the name and wonders what the operator’s betting rules look like.
Glorion
A broad-coverage sportsbook with pre-match and live betting, virtual sports, horse racing and esports, and a markets taxonomy that runs from popular sports through niche, indoor and outdoor sports, and into entertainment events such as award shows and elections. That last category — bets on award shows and elections — is the kind of novelty market offshore brands clear that TAB NZ does not, partly because the statute does not establish whether such markets fall within the Racing Industry Act at all.
Not licensed in New Zealand — TAB NZ is the sole lawful provider of racing and sports betting.
The right closing on Glorion is that it is the right brand for a reader whose interest runs to novelty and election markets, and it is the wrong brand for a New Zealand punter by virtue of section 74AAA alone. Its breadth is its product; its legal position in New Zealand is unchanged.
Spinbara
A two-track welcome: a casino welcome of 100% up to €500 plus 200 free spins, a sports welcome of 100% up to €100, and a separate crypto sports welcome of 100% up to 200 USDT. Three welcome offers on one platform is the multi-product-economics pattern again — a punter’s first deposit is shared between casino and sportsbook, and the bonus choice depends on which product the punter wants to chase. Crypto is the discount rail for the second of the three offers.
Not licensed in New Zealand — TAB NZ is the sole lawful provider of racing and sports betting.
The right closing on Spinbara is that it is a multi-vertical operator with a fan-out welcome structure designed to capture both casino and sportsbook players, and the structural problem for a New Zealand reader is unchanged. A reader who wants a 100% sportsbook welcome has many offshore options and no lawful one.
Sportaza
Anjouan-licensed (ALSI-202606064-FI2), with cash-out pre-finalisation, a Bet Builder feature with the explicit rule that a voided selection voids the whole slip, multiples, Asian lines and interval markets at 1, 5, 10 or 15 minute ranges. The interval markets — a market resettling every 1, 5, 10 or 15 minutes inside a live event — are a niche that some readers will have seen only on offshore brands; the cash-out pre-finalisation is now standard.
Not licensed in New Zealand — this bookmaker carries no local authorisation. Its Anjouan licence does not permit taking bets from New Zealand-based punters.
The right closing on Sportaza is that the interval-market product is genuinely interesting, the Bet Builder’s “one void voids all” rule is a useful disclosure that onshore brands sometimes bury, and the brand’s Anjouan licence is the same jurisdictional position as every other row in the offshore half of the table.
BetNinja
A Comoros-licensed operator with a casino welcome of €1,000 bonus and 100 free spins, and a sports welcome of a 100% match up to €100 on the first deposit. The casino welcome is the larger of the two by a factor of ten, which is the operator’s pitch that the sportsbook is the secondary product and the casino is where it wants the deposit.
Not licensed in New Zealand — local regulatory protections do not apply to this operator. Its Comoros licence holds no validity for New Zealand players.
The right closing on BetNinja is that it is a casino-first brand running a sportsbook on the side, and the standard offshore caveat applies. The Comoros licence is even less prominent than Curaçao or Anjouan in the regulator column; for a New Zealand reader the gap to TAB NZ is unaffected.
Roobet
A crypto-casino and sportsbook with a Curaçao licence (OGL/2024/687/0427) held by Raw Entertainment B.V. (Curaçao company number 157205, Korporaalweg 10, Curaçao). Crypto-native design means the cashier is built around crypto rails rather than card rails; that has consequences for a New Zealand punter whose bank may decline card deposits to offshore gambling merchants even when the punter’s own intention is to use the deposit.
Not licensed in New Zealand — this site is outside the New Zealand gambling framework. A Curaçao licence provides no right to accept New Zealand customers.
The right closing on Roobet is that it is a recognised crypto brand with a Curaçao licence, and that combination gives it no lawful purchase on a New Zealand bettor at all. The licence terms bound the operator; the statute binds the operator’s relationship with New Zealand; the punter sits outside both.
Frequently asked questions
Which betting site offers a free bet in New Zealand?
TAB NZ’s two online brands, TAB and Betcha, are the only operators lawfully offering betting to people in New Zealand, and both run “Bonus Cash” promotions that function as non-returnable-stake free bets. The Mega Multi promotion refunds up to $50 in Bonus Cash when a multi of four or more legs falls short by a set number of legs, and the Bonus Cash can be split across multiple bets. Offshore brands a New Zealand reader may encounter advertise free bets too, but those offers are made by operators that are not licensed in New Zealand under section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020.
Are there New Zealand rules on the size or terms of a betting bonus?
No New Zealand rule on bonus size, wagering multiple, minimum odds or deadline for betting offers was found; the betting-offer framework under section 74AAA is the Racing Industry Act, not the inducement-cap regime that the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 applies to online casinos. TAB NZ’s offers are bounded by TAB NZ’s own terms rather than by statute, which is why reading the in-app “How it works” tab before placing the first qualifying bet is the only practical safeguard. The Online Casino Gambling Act’s $100 / 200% inducement cap applies to licensed online casinos and does not govern TAB NZ’s betting promotions.
Why is the stake of a free or bonus bet not paid back with the winnings?
The convention makes the bonus cheaper for the operator and smaller in expected value for the punter. Where a cash-stake bet returns both the stake and the profit, a free-bet stake returns only the profit; the stake is consumed by the bet. At decimal odds of 1.90 on each side of an illustrative two-way market, a $50 free-bet stake is worth roughly $22.50 in expected profit, not $50, because the missing stake is the haircut the punter takes. Use it on a longer-priced selection and the value rises; use it on a 1.20 favourite and the value collapses.
Which bookmaker may lawfully take sports and racing bets in New Zealand?
TAB NZ, trading online as TAB and Betcha, is the only provider lawfully offering racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand since section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 took effect on 28 June 2025. There is no licence register for bookmakers because there is only one lawful provider; the Department of Internal Affairs told unlicensed providers to withdraw with immediate effect. Any brand other than TAB and Betcha accepting a New Zealand customer is operating unlawfully under New Zealand law, regardless of any offshore licence it holds.
How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?
Return on a winning single bet equals stake multiplied by the decimal odds; net profit equals stake multiplied by decimal odds minus one. A combination bet multiplies the odds of each leg into a single price before applying the stake — so three legs at 1.80, 2.20 and 3.00 combine to 1.80 × 2.20 × 3.00 = 11.88, and a $10 stake returns $118.80 with a net profit of $108.80. The bookmaker’s margin is built into every leg, so the combined price carries the margin of each leg compounded onto the next.
Which tools for controlling play do TAB and Betcha offer, and who can be called for help?
Both apps offer deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion, and an exclusion applies across both brands because they share one account infrastructure. The free Gambling Helpline on 0800 654 655 (text 8006) is the independent route, listed inside both apps, and Safer Gambling Aotearoa is the body behind it. The Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74% paid by TAB NZ funds the wider harm-minimisation network; the levy is in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028.
Bonuses & free bets – bettinginfo-nz
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