Betting promotions in New Zealand in 2026: who is allowed to offer them, and what they are really worth
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Most markets a betting comparison can write about have several licensed bookmakers competing on price and a few offshore brands undercutting them. New Zealand in 2026 does not. Since an amendment to the Racing Industry Act 2020 took effect on 28 June 2025, only two online brands may take sports and racing bets from people in New Zealand — TAB NZ and its sister brand Betcha — and the Department of Internal Affairs told every other provider serving New Zealand customers to withdraw with immediate effect. That single rule rewrites what a page on “betting promotions in New Zealand” can actually compare, because there is nothing left to put beside TAB and Betcha on the lawful side of the fence. Every sign-up offer, deposit match, free bet and boosted-odds promotion that an international bookmaker advertises at a New Zealand reader is an offer the operator is not allowed to make, and the page that pretends otherwise misleads the person reading it.
The angle of this page is choice — which paths exist in this market and who each one suits. There are two. The first is the lawful one: TAB NZ and Betcha, the two online brands of the same monopoly operator, with Bonus Cash promotions, Safer Betting tools and a free helpline in the country. The second is the offshore one: international bookmakers whose welcome offers a New Zealand reader can still find, sign up to and deposit with, but which take those bets without a New Zealand licence, without a New Zealand complaints route and without the harm-minimisation framework the local operator runs. The job of the rest of this page is to say plainly what each path gives the player, what each one costs, and which reader is the right fit for which.
Current as of October 30, 2026. Licence status and operator listings checked against the Racing Industry Act 2020, the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025 and each operator’s own published terms.
The legal frame: one operator, two brands, and a withdrawal notice to everyone else
The legal frame for betting in New Zealand in 2026 is short because most of what other jurisdictions regulate is already settled here. The Racing Industry Act 2020 establishes TAB NZ as the national betting operator, and section 74AAA, inserted by the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025 and in force since 28 June 2025, closes the door on everyone else: 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, which regulates gambling under the Gambling Act 2003 and monitors compliance with section 92A of the Racing Industry Act, told unlicensed providers to withdraw with immediate effect on the rule’s commencement. There is no licence route for another bookmaker and no licence register for betting, because there is only one lawful operator.
That single statement does several things at once. It makes TAB NZ the monopoly provider. It makes Betcha, which sits on the same licence as TAB, an online alternative within the same operator group rather than a rival. It puts the liability on the offshore bookmaker that continues to serve a New Zealand customer, because the law targets the operator, not the player. And it tells a reader comparing welcome offers what the table is really comparing: one local operator running two brands, and a list of offshore brands that the law says must not take New Zealand bets.
Entain runs the TAB business under a 25-year agreement signed in 2023 that gives Entain a 50/50 share of gross profits, with at least $150m a year going to TAB NZ for the first five years, and Entain pledged a one-off $100m payment to the racing sector. That partnership is the reason the TAB app and the Betcha app look different from each other and feel like separate products: TAB carries Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, one-tap Popular Multis and a Place Extra option that backs runners to finish up to tenth in selected races, while Betcha leans into a Multi Builder, trending multis to copy and a Same Game Multi grid. Both brands still belong to TAB NZ, both still operate under the same licence, and both still run the same Safer Betting tools.
A few adjacent rules need a one-line place so the rest of the page does not have to repeat them. 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 online casino law that takes effect in 2026 (the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026) is for online casinos only and does not change who may take a sports or racing bet. Whether esports betting is “sports betting” under the Racing Industry Act is not established, so any esports betting available at an offshore brand is taken under that brand’s own licence, not under any New Zealand framework. New Zealand does not geo-block offshore websites, which is why a New Zealand reader can still load and deposit at an international bookmaker — the law puts the liability on the operator that chooses to serve New Zealand, not on the network that lets the page load.
The age for TAB NZ betting is 18. Betting under 18 is an offence under section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020, and TAB NZ accounts need a verified New Zealand address and ID. Land-based casinos have a different age threshold of 20, and that is for casino floors — not for betting, and not for online play at TAB NZ. The two ages are easy to merge because both sit inside New Zealand gambling law, and merging them is wrong.
Player protection: what TAB and Betcha run, and what offshore players lose
TAB NZ’s safer-gambling tools are listed in its app: deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion. The exclusion applies across both brands, so a punter who self-excludes from TAB is excluded from Betcha as well, and the limit set on a TAB account carries over. The free New Zealand Gambling Helpline is 0800 654 655, with a text line on 8006, and both lines are run inside New Zealand rather than routed to an offshore call centre. Betcha carries a 17+ App Store age rating, lists Safer Betting tools in the app and points readers to the same 24/7 Gambling Helpline. Neither brand makes those tools optional at the marketing layer — they sit on the same account, and the same tax-funded harm-minimisation framework sits behind them.
TAB NZ pays a Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74% in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028, which funds prevention, treatment and research inside New Zealand. That levy is on the operator, not on the bet, but it is the financial reason the helpline and the Safer Gambling Aotearoa programmes exist at all.
None of those tools reach an offshore brand. The Department of Internal Affairs is explicit on the risk: overseas operators may sit in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits, and may not pay out large wins. There is no New Zealand complaints route to take when an offshore brand refuses a withdrawal. The brand’s own licence — a Tobique Gaming Commission number, an Anjouan number, a Curaçao number — is the only recourse, and the only person reading it is the player. New Zealand law targets the operator that chose to serve New Zealand; no published penalty for a player was found in any current guidance, and no source states that placing a bet offshore is illegal for the player. The honest framing is the one DIA uses: TAB NZ and Betcha are the only lawful options, with local tools, regulator oversight and a complaints framework; offshore brands are unlawful for the operator to serve New Zealand, with no local complaints route, with the risks DIA names, and with limits and exclusions that sit in a different jurisdiction’s terms. Neither side gets called “the safe choice” by default, because that phrase is doing work the law will not do for it.
The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 will require an online casino exclusion register, but that register is for online casinos and does not extend to sports or racing betting. Anyone who self-excludes at TAB NZ excludes from TAB and Betcha only; the offshore sportsbook is unaffected.
What a TAB NZ Bonus Cash promotion is, and what it costs
New TAB NZ customers can receive Bonus Cash that can be split across multiple bets, and the app lists 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. These are the two promotion shapes the lawful New Zealand market actually runs. There is no New Zealand rule on bonus size or wagering terms for betting, because there is only one operator, so the only set of terms that exists is TAB NZ’s own. Each promotion sits inside TAB NZ’s published terms, and a punters’s recourse if a bonus is not paid is the operator’s own complaints process rather than a regulator on a different continent.
A “bonus bet” at TAB NZ is not the same product as a free bet at an international bookmaker, and the difference matters at the moment the bet wins. At an international bookmaker, a free bet is a token the punter uses to place a stake that the bookmaker will not pay back if the bet wins — only the profit comes back, and only if the leg lands. At TAB NZ, Bonus Cash is split across multiple bets and applied as stake credit on each one, and the term that governs how it pays out lives in TAB NZ’s terms rather than in a New Zealand statute. The same rule that defines every other free bet in the world still applies: the stake of a bonus or free bet is not paid back with the winnings, so a winning $10 bonus bet at even money returns the profit only, not the stake plus the profit. Any framing in a promotion that suggests the stake is returned is the framing being wrong, not the betting being wrong.
The arithmetic of a free bet is what shows why. A free bet of nominal value F at decimal odds o on a market with payout share p is worth, on average, F × (o − 1) ÷ o × p. The stake is not in that number, because the stake is what the punter did not pay. On a textbook two-way market at 1.90 / 1.90 the payout share is 1 ÷ (1/1.90 + 1/1.90) = 0.95, and the formula gives an average value of F × (1.90 − 1) ÷ 1.90 × 0.95 = F × 0.45 × 0.95 = F × 0.4275. Put plainly: a $10 free bet at 1.90 / 1.90 is worth about $4.28 in expected value, with a band that runs from about $4.20 on a slightly juiced market to about $4.40 on a slightly sharper one. The punter who treats the $10 as if it were $10 of real money is overpaying the marketing by more than half. The punter who treats it as $4 of real money is treating it fairly. The headline that says “$50 in Bonus Cash” is the nominal value; the average it is actually worth is closer to $21.40 on the same math, with the same conditions. That gap is the cost of the marketing.
A Mega Multi bonus of “up to $50” paid when a multi of four or more legs falls short by a set number of legs is paid as Bonus Cash, which is itself governed by the same free-bet rule. The headline cap is the cap on the nominal payout, not a guarantee that any given multi will land close enough to trigger the maximum. The punter who reads “up to $50” as “$50 of real money on top of a win” is reading a marketing line as a payout line, and the difference between the two is the wagering term the rule hides.
There is no wagering multiple at TAB NZ because there is no wagering multiple in New Zealand law. There is no minimum odds rule for a qualifying bet at TAB NZ because no such rule exists in New Zealand law. Every term a promotion carries comes from TAB NZ’s own published terms, which a punter checks before claiming, because no other rule will check it for them.
How the return on a bet works, and what the margin takes
A bet pays the stake times the decimal odds. A $10 stake at 1.90 returns $19 if the bet wins, which is $9 of net profit over the $10 risked. The same arithmetic at 3.50 returns $35 on a $10 stake, which is $25 of net profit. A combination bet multiplies the odds of the legs into one price, so a two-leg multi with legs at 1.90 and 2.20 has combined odds of 4.18 and a $10 stake returns $41.80 if both legs land. The multi is more expensive because more legs have to win, and the higher combined price is the compensation for that risk, not a gift from the bookmaker.
The bookmaker’s margin sits inside every price on the menu, and the size of it shows up when the implied probabilities of the outcomes add up to more than 100%. On a two-way market priced at 1.90 / 1.90, the implied probability of each side is 1 ÷ 1.90 = 0.5263, and the two together sum to 1.0526. The extra 0.0526 is the margin — about 5.26%, or roughly 5p in every dollar bet on this market. The punter’s payout share is 1 minus that margin, which is 0.9474 on this market, or roughly 95p back for every $1 bet across both outcomes in the long run. The same margin on a market priced at 1.80 / 2.00 is 1 ÷ 1.80 + 1 ÷ 2.00 = 0.5556 + 0.5000 = 1.0556, a margin of 5.56% and a payout share of 94.44%. The tighter the prices the bookmaker runs, the smaller that gap, and the more of every dollar bet comes back to the field of punters on average.
The punter who reads a price as “what the bet pays” is reading half the line. The price is also what the bet costs, because the difference between a price of 1.90 and a price of 2.00 on the same outcome is what the margin looks like on a single leg. The bookmaker’s edge is the same edge on the multi that multiplies into the final price, and the longer the multi the more each leg’s margin compounds. A four-leg multi of four 1.90 legs has a combined price of 4 × 1.90 ÷ 4 roughly, but the exact arithmetic on the implied probabilities is what gives the book’s edge on the multi: each leg at 1.90 carries about a 2.63% margin, and the multi’s margin is roughly the sum of the leg margins, which on four 1.90 legs sits close to 10% rather than the 5.26% on the single two-way market. The multi that pays more per leg pays more because it costs more, and the cost is the margin stacked into a longer ticket.
The same rule applies to a boosted-odds promotion at an offshore brand. The boost looks like a bigger payout, and it is, but the price the bookmaker was already charging on the underlying market was the price that included its margin, and the boost is the marketing layer on top. The punter who reads “boosted to 10.00 from 8.00” as “the bookmaker is being generous” is reading the marketing, not the math. The bookmaker is being promotional, and the two are different acts, with different costs.
The offshore path: how the offer gets to a New Zealand reader, and what it does not include
International bookmakers with welcome offers, free bets and reload bonuses still load on a New Zealand internet connection, still accept New Zealand-dollar deposits by card and by crypto at some brands, and still email sign-up offers to New Zealand addresses. The reason they do is that New Zealand does not geo-block offshore websites, the law puts liability on the operator rather than the player, and the operator has decided to take New Zealand customers despite the rule. Each of those brands names a licence on its own terms page, and each of those licences is issued outside New Zealand, which gives the brand no right to take bets from people in New Zealand under New Zealand law.
The welcome offer is the headline reason a reader ends up at one of those brands, and the headline is the part that costs the reader the most. A “100% up to $100” first-deposit bonus looks like the operator giving the punter an extra $100 to bet with, and the small print is what changes that picture. Wagering requirements of 5x to 10x the bonus are common, minimum odds rules of 1.50 to 2.00 are common on qualifying bets, time limits of 7 to 30 days are common, and the cap on what a bonus pays out is often written into the same terms. A punter who reads the headline and skips the terms is overpaying the marketing by enough that the headline price is the wrong number to compare on.
The same arithmetic from the previous section is what makes the math visible. A $100 bonus with a 5x wagering requirement on the bonus amount means $500 of qualifying bets at minimum odds, which at a market margin of 5.26% carries an expected cost of $500 × 0.0526 = $26.30 in edge to the bookmaker before the punter sees a cent. The punter who reads the headline as “$100 free” is reading a number that does not exist; the punter who reads the math as “$100 nominal, $26 of expected cost before any payout, then the rest if the math breaks their way” is reading the same offer and seeing what it actually is. The free bet is the marketing push in the right direction, and the wagering requirement is the brake.
A free bet at an offshore brand works the same way TAB NZ’s Bonus Cash works: the stake is not paid back, only the profit, and the average value of a $10 free bet on a 1.90 / 1.90 market sits at the same $4.28 the local market shows. The difference between the two paths is not the arithmetic of the free bet. The difference is what sits around the free bet. On the local path the punter has a New Zealand complaints route, a harm-minimisation framework and a helpline inside the country. On the offshore path the punter has the brand’s own licence in a different jurisdiction, no local complaints route, and the risks the Department of Internal Affairs names: that the operator may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins. A punter who treats the two paths as economically equivalent on the free bet is reading the offer and not the operation. The offer is the same shape; the operation is not.
The Top 10: what each entry is, and who each one suits
The list below names ten platforms a New Zealand reader can encounter, ranked by whether the platform is the lawful option in New Zealand. TAB NZ and Betcha are first because they are the only two brands that may lawfully take sports and racing bets here, as established by the Racing Industry Act 2020. The other eight are listed for reference because New Zealand players meet them in marketing, in affiliates and in offshore media. They are not a ranking and not a recommendation. Each is marked “not licensed in New Zealand”, and the comparison that follows is the kind of comparison a reader can do without crossing the law.
| New Zealand status | Brand | What the operator’s own terms state on the key’s subject |
|---|---|---|
| TAB NZ brand | TAB | One of two online brands of TAB NZ; Bonus Cash that splits across multiple bets; 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; Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, one-tap Popular Multis, Place Extra up to tenth in selected races; Safer Betting tools — deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion; 18+ |
| TAB NZ brand | Betcha | One of two online brands of TAB NZ; Multi Builder to build, copy trending multis and track live legs; a multi-grid for Same Game Multis; a daily Toolbox with odds boosts and insurance tools for bets that do not land; Bet Social section with tipsters and shared bets; Safer Betting tools; 17+ App Store age rating |
| Not licensed in New Zealand | Rooster.bet | Operated by Novatrix SRL, Costa Rica; e-gaming licence No. 0000002 from the Tobique Gaming Commission; no right to take bets from people in New Zealand under NZ law |
| Not licensed in New Zealand | Spinbara | First deposit bonus of 100% up to EUR 100; sport crypto welcome bonus of 100% up to 200 USDT; casino welcome bonus of 100% up to EUR 500 plus 200 free spins; no licence that applies in New Zealand |
| Not licensed in New Zealand | Sportaza | Cash out before an event or market is finalised; Bet Builder with one void selection voiding the whole betslip; multiples; Asian lines; interval markets in 1, 5, 10 or 15 minute ranges; Anjouan licence ALSI-202606064-FI2; no right to take bets from people in New Zealand |
| Not licensed in New Zealand | 22Bet | Over 30 market types per event — 1X2, Double Chance, totals, both teams to score, correct score, HT-FT, plus tennis game, set and handicap markets; Curaçao licence 8048/JAZ, holder TechSolutions Group N.V.; no right to take bets from people in New Zealand |
| Not licensed in New Zealand | Thunderpick | 100% deposit bonus up to EUR 600; crypto recommended for fast deposits; esports-first coverage of CS2, League of Legends, Dota 2 and Valorant; cash-out feature; sportsbook markets from the Champions League to the NFL; Curaçao licence OGL/2024/677/0722, holder Paloma Media B.V.; no right to take bets from people in New Zealand |
| Not licensed in New Zealand | Glorion | Pre-match and live betting, virtual sports, horse racing and esports; markets grouped into popular, niche, indoor and outdoor sports plus entertainment events such as award shows and elections; no licence that applies in New Zealand |
| Not licensed in New Zealand | Golden Panda | Sports section with sportsbook, esports and virtual sports; casino, live casino, crash games, rewards, cashback, a VIP Club, Golden Goals and Prediction Markets; no licence that applies in New Zealand |
| Not licensed in New Zealand | Winz.io | Sports betting bonus promotion with separate Sportsbook T&C, Sports Rules and Bonus Terms and Conditions pages; Anjouan and Tobique licences, holder Novatrix SRL; no right to take bets from people in New Zealand |
The two top entries are the same operator under two different product surfaces. TAB is the long-standing brand with the broader racing product — Same Race Multis, Place Extra to tenth, the tote dividend pool that has run in New Zealand for decades — and Betcha is the newer, app-first surface with a Multi Builder, copy-multis and a social feed. A punter who wants the tote dividend, the Place Extra and the racing-specific markets that TAB has run since well before the 2025 amendment sits on TAB. A punter who wants a Same Game Multi grid, a feed of trending multis and a daily Toolbox of boosts and insurance tools sits on Betcha. The exclusion a punter sets on either applies across both, because both belong to TAB NZ.
The next eight entries are not a recommendation and not a ranking. They are a list of brands a New Zealand reader will see in marketing, and each one is marked “not licensed in New Zealand” so the comparison the table makes is honest. Rooster.bet operates under a Tobique e-gaming licence from Costa Rica, Spinbara names no licence that applies in New Zealand, Sportaza names an Anjouan licence that does not apply in New Zealand, 22Bet names a Curaçao licence that does not apply in New Zealand, Thunderpick names a Curaçao licence that does not apply in New Zealand, Glorion names no licence that applies in New Zealand, Golden Panda names no licence that applies in New Zealand, and Winz.io names Anjouan and Tobique licences that do not apply in New Zealand. Each brand’s product surface — Sportaza’s cash-out and Bet Builder, 22Bet’s 30 market types per event, Thunderpick’s esports-first coverage, Glorion’s entertainment markets, Golden Panda’s Prediction Markets, Winz.io’s separate Sportsbook T&C — is what the operator’s own terms state, and each line on the table is what those terms say.
TAB: the lawful bookmaker and tote in one brand
TAB is the long-standing brand of TAB NZ and the surface that carries the racing product most New Zealand punters know. The app lists Bonus Cash that splits across multiple bets, 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, Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis, one-tap Popular Multis and a Place Extra option that backs runners to finish up to tenth in selected races. The racing bet types TAB publishes — Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie and Big6 — are the bet types the New Zealand tote has run for decades, and the dividend on a winning pool bet is the dividend the tote declares after the race closes, not a price set in advance.
The promotion shape on TAB is steady: a Bonus Cash balance that is applied as stake on a bet the punter chooses, with the same free-bet rule that governs every other free bet in the world applying to how it pays out. The Mega Multi bonus of up to $50 is a refund of stake as Bonus Cash on a multi that almost lands, and the headline cap is the cap on the nominal payout rather than a guarantee on any given multi. Safer Betting tools — deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion — sit on the account, and the Gambling Helpline on 0800 654 655 sits behind them. The age is 18, the account needs a verified New Zealand address and ID, and the levy TAB pays funds the harm-minimisation framework a New Zealand reader can ring. TAB suits the punter who wants the racing product the tote has run for decades and the local harm-minimisation framework that sits behind it.
Betcha: TAB NZ’s app-first brand, same monopoly
Betcha is the second online brand of TAB NZ, and it carries the same licence TAB carries. The app’s daily Toolbox holds odds boosts and insurance tools for bets that do not land, the Multi Builder lets the punter build a multi and copy trending multis, and a multi-grid builds Same Game Multis from a single event. The Bet Social section lets punters chat, follow tipsters and share bets or pools, and a Playbook holds tips and match analysis. The same Safer Betting tools that sit on TAB sit on Betcha, the same 0800 654 655 helpline is listed in the app, and a self-exclusion set on one brand carries to the other.
The Multi Builder is the surface that gives Betcha its own product feel: it puts Same Game Multis on a grid the punter builds leg by leg, copies a trending multi at the same odds, and tracks each leg live as the event runs. The Toolbox and the insurance tools are the parts of the product that look the most like the marketing a punter sees at an offshore bookmaker, and they are the parts that need the same read of the terms — the headline “boost” or “insurance” is the nominal value, and the average value is the nominal minus the margin the market carries. Betcha suits the punter who wants a multi-first surface with a social feed and is happy to be on the same TAB NZ account.
Rooster.bet: an offshore brand with a Tobique licence
Rooster.bet is operated by Novatrix SRL, a company incorporated in Costa Rica under registration number 3-102-893958, and names an e-gaming licence from the Tobique Gaming Commission. The Tobique licence gives the brand no right to take bets from people in New Zealand under New Zealand law, and the brand’s own terms are the only terms a New Zealand player has, with no New Zealand complaints route to escalate to. A New Zealand reader who ends up at Rooster.bet ends up there because the marketing reached them, not because the operator is allowed to serve them. The verdict is clear: the offer is the marketing, the operation is the offshore operation, and the gap between the two is what a New Zealand punter pays.
Spinbara: a casino-first brand with a sportsbook bolted on
Spinbara’s English site advertises a first deposit bonus of 100% up to EUR 100 and a sport crypto welcome bonus of 100% up to 200 USDT, alongside a casino welcome bonus of 100% up to EUR 500 plus 200 free spins. The brand names no licence that applies in New Zealand, the bonus terms are in euros and USDT rather than NZ dollars, and the wagering terms a punter reads sit on the brand’s own site under the brand’s own licence. The crypto welcome bonus is the marketing that reaches crypto-using New Zealand readers most directly, and the math on a 100% up to 200 USDT bonus is the math the previous section ran on a $100 bonus: the headline is the nominal, the wagering requirement and the minimum odds on qualifying bets are the cost, and the expected cost sits in the same band the section named. A New Zealand reader who reads the headline and skips the terms is reading the offer, not the operation.
Sportaza: a sportsbook with cash-out and a Bet Builder
Sportaza offers cash out before an event or market is finalised, a Bet Builder where one void selection voids the whole betslip, multiples, Asian lines and interval markets in 1, 5, 10 or 15 minute ranges. The brand names an Anjouan licence (ALSI-202606064-FI2), which gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand under NZ law, and the in-play and interval markets the brand publishes are the markets the brand’s own licence covers rather than any New Zealand framework. Cash-out and Bet Builder are the parts of the product a New Zealand punter most often sees marketed, and both are common across offshore sportsbooks rather than a competitive advantage; the same mechanics sit behind the same marketing across half a dozen brands on this list. The verdict is the same: a feature set the local operator runs on TAB and Betcha, a licence the New Zealand framework does not recognise, and no local complaints route.
22Bet: a deep market menu on a Curaçao licence
22Bet offers over 30 market types per event, including 1X2, Double Chance, totals, both teams to score, correct score and HT-FT, plus tennis game, set and handicap markets. The brand names a Curaçao licence (8048/JAZ), held by TechSolutions Group N.V., which gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand under NZ law. The depth of the market menu is what 22Bet markets — 30 types per event is more than TAB NZ publishes on most events — and the depth is the only thing that distinguishes the offer on this list. A punter who wants a market type TAB does not publish will not find it on TAB, and 22Bet is one of the brands that publishes it. An offshore brand’s availability is simply the availability of markets TAB NZ does not provide, at the cost of using a service not licensed or regulated in New Zealand.
Thunderpick: an esports-first bookmaker with a sportsbook bolted on
Thunderpick advertises a 100% deposit bonus up to EUR 600 and recommends crypto for fast deposits, with other payment methods also available. The brand is esports-first, covering CS2, League of Legends, Dota 2 and Valorant, and its sportsbook offers a cash-out feature and markets from the Champions League to the NFL. The brand names a Curaçao licence (OGL/2024/677/0722), held by Paloma Media B.V., which gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand under NZ law. The crypto-first positioning is what reaches a New Zealand reader who already uses crypto for deposits, and the esports-first menu is what reaches a punter who wants markets on CS2 and Dota 2 rather than on thoroughbred racing and the All Blacks. Whether esports betting is “sports betting” under the Racing Industry Act is not established, which is the legal status a New Zealand reader sits in when they place an esports bet at an offshore brand: undefined.
Glorion: a wide market menu with entertainment events
Glorion 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 entertainment markets — award shows and elections — are the markets the section on what may be bet on flagged as not established under New Zealand law, and they sit here on the brand’s own licence rather than any New Zealand framework. A New Zealand punter who wants to bet on an election outcome will not find that market at TAB NZ and will find it at Glorion, a platform not licensed or regulated here.
Golden Panda: a casino-first brand with a sportsbook
Golden Panda offers a Sports section with a sportsbook, esports and virtual sports, plus casino, live casino, crash games, rewards, cashback, a VIP Club, Golden Goals and Prediction Markets. The brand names no licence that applies in New Zealand. The product is a casino surface with a sportsbook attached, and the cashback, the VIP Club and the Prediction Markets are the casino-style features that sit beside the sportsbook. A New Zealand punter who wants a sportsbook and a casino on the same account will not find that combination at TAB NZ, because TAB is betting only, and Golden Panda is one of the brands that publishes it. This combination is available offshore, but the platform remains unlicensed in New Zealand.
Winz.io: a sportsbook with separate bonus terms
Winz.io runs a sports betting bonus promotion, with separate Sportsbook T&C, Sports Rules and Bonus Terms and Conditions pages. The brand names Anjouan and Tobique licences, held by Novatrix SRL, which are offshore licences that do not permit the brand to offer sports betting to New Zealand residents. The separate bonus terms are the part of the product that matters most to a punter who reads them: a sports betting bonus at an offshore brand carries its own wagering requirement, its own minimum odds rule and its own cap on payouts, and the source for those numbers is the brand’s own page rather than any New Zealand framework. A New Zealand reader who ends up at Winz.io ends up there because the marketing reached them, not because the operator is allowed to serve them.
Reading the comparison the table makes
The table above is a comparison across two things at once. The first is the lawful status of each entry: TAB and Betcha are the only two brands that may take sports and racing bets from a person in New Zealand, and the other eight are not licensed in New Zealand. The second is the product surface each entry publishes: TAB’s racing product, Betcha’s Multi Builder, Rooster.bet and Winz.io’s sportsbooks, Spinbara’s casino-first product, Sportaza’s cash-out and Bet Builder, 22Bet’s 30 market types per event, Thunderpick’s esports-first menu, Glorion’s entertainment markets, and Golden Panda’s casino-first surface. The two columns do not move together — a brand that publishes a market TAB does not carry is still a brand that is not licensed in New Zealand — and a reader who reads it as a straight product comparison is reading one column and skipping the other.
The right way to read the table is to start with the lawful status column and only then look at the product column. A reader who needs a market TAB does not carry — an esports market, an entertainment market, a market on a league TAB has not yet priced — has three honest choices: wait for TAB to publish it, ask TAB to publish it, or place the bet offshore knowing what the offshore path does not include. The table does not recommend the third choice; it shows that the third choice exists, names what it costs, and lets the reader decide.
How to read a promotion before claiming it
A promotion is a marketing surface, and the terms behind the marketing are the surface that pays out. The four lines to read before claiming a promotion are the bonus type, the wagering requirement, the minimum odds rule and the expiry.
The bonus type is whether the offer is paid as cash, as a free bet whose stake is not returned, or as Bonus Cash that splits across multiple bets. The same nominal value pays out differently across the three types, and the average value of a free bet is roughly the nominal times the formula in the section on Bonus Cash. A punter who reads the nominal and skips the type is reading the marketing.
The wagering requirement is the multiplier on the bonus (or the bonus plus the deposit) that the punter has to turn over in qualifying bets before the bonus balance converts to a withdrawable balance. The math is turnover = bonus × multiplier, and the cost of clearing that turnover at a market margin of 5% sits at turnover × 0.05 in expected loss, before any payout.
The minimum odds rule is the floor below which a qualifying bet does not count toward the wagering requirement. Bets placed below the floor still settle, but they do not clear the bonus, which means the punter has used stake on bets that did not count and still has wagering to clear. The rule is the part of the small print that costs the most because it is the part most often skipped.
The expiry is the time the bonus and the wagering requirement have to be cleared in. A 7-day expiry on a 5x wagering requirement means the punter has to turn over 5x the bonus in a week, which is roughly one bet every day at a flat stake. A 30-day expiry on the same requirement is roughly one bet every six days. The shorter the expiry, the more the wagering has to be cleared in a hurry, and the more the punter is pushed toward bets the punter must not otherwise have placed.
TAB NZ’s Bonus Cash carries its own terms rather than a wagering multiple, and the section on Bonus Cash is the section that owns those terms. The Offshore path is the path where the four lines above matter most.
Tax on winnings, and what a player actually owes
Inland Revenue guidance says recreational gambling winnings are generally not taxable in New Zealand, and prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is not taxable. A person who bets as a business — a professional punter whose wagering activity is run as a trade — is a different case, and the rule there is the general business-income rule rather than a gambling rule. The page says this once: recreational winnings from TAB NZ are not taxable, professional punting is a different question, and Inland Revenue or an accountant is the right place to ask.
The operator side of tax is not the player side. TAB NZ pays the Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74%. 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. The duty is not a sign that an offshore offer is lawful; the duty is a separate rule, and the operator paying it does not make the offer legal under section 74AAA. The point-of-consumption charge on offshore racing and sports bets ceased on 30 June 2026, which removes one layer of the offshore framework but leaves section 74AAA in place.
Choosing a path: who each option suits
The lawful path suits the punter who wants a New Zealand complaints route, a local harm-minimisation framework, a helpline inside the country and a regulator that can be contacted. It is the only path where the operator is allowed to take the bet, and it is the only path where the punter can be sure the wagering activity sits inside the same legal frame as the deposit, the withdrawal and the Safer Betting tools. TAB is the racing-first surface; Betcha is the multi-first surface; both are TAB NZ.
The offshore path suits the punter who wants a market TAB does not publish, who is willing to take the operator-side risk that DIA names, and who is comfortable with no New Zealand complaints route. It is not a recommendation. It is a path that exists, with a cost the section on what a TAB NZ Bonus Cash promotion costs names in terms the punter can read, and with an operational cost the section on player protection names in terms the punter cannot recover. The offshore path is the path where the math on the marketing is most of the decision and where the operation behind the marketing is least of it.
Neither path is “the safe choice” by default. TAB NZ is the lawful choice. The offshore brands are not, and the page says so plainly. The decision between TAB and Betcha is a product decision, not a legal one. The decision between the lawful path and the offshore path is a legal decision, and the law decides it: only TAB NZ and Betcha may lawfully take sports and racing bets from a person in New Zealand.
What changes a reader must know about
Three things move in 2026 that a reader comparing offers must know about. The first is greyhound racing closing in stages from 1 August 2026, and from that date offshore operators may not take bets on greyhound races either. The second is the online gambling duty on overseas operators rising to 16% from 1 January 2027, which is the operator side of the equation rather than the player side but is the kind of change that pushes an offshore brand to change its marketing or its terms. The third is the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026, which licenses online casinos and will require an online casino exclusion register but does not extend the betting monopoly to anyone else and does not change who may take a sports or racing bet.
The page does not predict what those changes mean for individual promotions. The promotions a reader sees on TAB NZ and Betcha are the promotions TAB NZ and Betcha publish, and the promotions a reader sees on an offshore brand are the promotions that offshore brand publishes under its own licence in its own jurisdiction. The right place to check a promotion before claiming it is the operator’s own terms page, and the right place to check the lawful status of an operator is the Department of Internal Affairs, which regulates gambling under the Gambling Act 2003 and monitors compliance with section 92A of the Racing Industry Act 2020.
Frequently asked questions
Are there New Zealand rules on the size or terms of a betting bonus?
No. Because only TAB NZ may offer racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand under the Racing Industry Act 2020, there is no second operator for a rule to bind and no rule on bonus size, wagering requirements, minimum odds or expiry has been set in statute. Every term a TAB NZ or Betcha promotion carries comes from TAB NZ’s own published terms, which is also the only set of terms the operator is bound by. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 sets a $100 / 200% cap on inducements at licensed online casinos, but that rule is for casinos only and does not govern betting.
Why is the stake of a free or bonus bet not paid back with the winnings?
Because the stake is what the bookmaker gave the punter, and the punter cannot be paid back what the punter did not pay. On a free $10 bet at decimal odds of 1.90, the return on a win is the profit only — $9, not $19 — and the formula that gives the average value of a free bet is the nominal times the profit-per-stake fraction times the market’s payout share. That is why a $10 free bet at 1.90 / 1.90 is worth about $4.28 on average rather than $10, and why the headline “up to $50 in Bonus Cash” reads as a $50 headline but pays out as a fraction of it. The same rule applies to TAB NZ’s Bonus Cash and to the free bets offshore brands advertise.
Which bookmaker may lawfully take sports and racing bets in New Zealand?
TAB NZ, through its two online brands TAB and Betcha, under the Racing Industry Act 2020. There is no licence route for another bookmaker and no licence register for betting, because there is only this one lawful operator. The Department of Internal Affairs told every other provider serving New Zealand customers to withdraw with immediate effect. Any other brand offering bets to a person in New Zealand is doing so without a New Zealand licence, regardless of what other jurisdiction’s licence the brand holds.
How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?
The return on a winning single bet is the stake times the decimal odds. A $10 stake at 1.90 returns $19 if the bet wins, which is $9 of net profit over the $10 risked. On a combination bet the odds of the legs multiply into one price, so two legs at 1.90 and 2.20 combine to 4.18, and a $10 stake returns $41.80 if both legs land. The bookmaker’s margin sits inside every price, and on a two-way market priced at 1.90 / 1.90 the implied probabilities sum to 1.0526, a margin of about 5.0% and a payout share of about 95.0%.
Which tools for controlling play do TAB and Betcha offer, and who can be called for help?
Both TAB and Betcha list deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion in their apps, and a self-exclusion set on one brand applies across both, because both are TAB NZ. The free New Zealand Gambling Helpline is 0800 654 655, with a text line on 8006, and both lines are run inside New Zealand rather than routed offshore. Safer Gambling Aotearoa programmes sit behind the same harm-minimisation framework TAB funds through the Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74%. None of those tools reach an offshore brand, whose complaints route sits in the brand’s own licence jurisdiction rather than in New Zealand.
What does a player lose by betting with a bookmaker that has no New Zealand licence?
The player loses the New Zealand complaints route, the local harm-minimisation framework and the regulator a player can contact. 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 targets the operator; no published penalty for a player was found. A bonus or free bet at an offshore brand pays the same math as a TAB NZ promotion, but the operation behind it is not the same operation, and a player who treats the two as equivalent is reading the offer and not the operation.
Bonuses & free bets – cryptobetsnz
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