Online gambling is popular across the world and that includes the largest South American country submerged continent of Zealandia, New Zealand. Most New Zealanders, like people from across the world, fancy placing a wager on a game or a sport. In fact most of them have had access to online casinos run by overseas operators.

The only way to gamble online in New Zealand that is controlled under the New Zealand law is to play Lotto NZ and New Zealand Racing Board (TAB). New Zealand based companies are not allowed to offer online casino types of gambling like roulette or virtual poker.

This is why the access to offshore online casinos has been the only way New Zealanders are able to play their favourite casino games until recently. This is because all forms of gambling except horse races and the lottery are banned here, though things are slowly changing. We will discuss this in detail in a later section.

#1 Review Site: Safe and Secure New Zealand Online Casinos

Reliability of the Casino and Operator

We test every casino that comes our way for their reliability. It is not just the casino; we check for the reliability of the operator as well. We visit the various player forums because they are the best places for accurate information on how players feel about a casino.

Every casino on our list is owned and operated by a reputed and reliable casino operator.

Safety and Security

We test the security protocols at every online casino that supports New Zealand players. This is critical to ensure the security of your money and data, given the remote nature of online casino gambling.

All the casinos that make it to our list use advanced digital security technologies, including 128-bit SSL encryption at the very least, to guarantee 100% security for your payments and also your personal info.

Support for the New Zealand dollar

Payments contribute greatly to the overall casino experience and the first touch point that any player should ideally check for is the currency that he will be able to deposit and withdraw in. A casino that supports your native currency saves you the bother and fees associated with currency conversion.

We test all New Zealand-friendly online casinos for the currencies they support; every casino on our list accepts payments and supports withdrawals in the New Zealand dollar. There are no currency conversion fees to cough up; just pick your preferred payment method, enter the amount and hit pay; that’s it.

Overall Banking Support

We check all online casinos accepting New Zealand players for the banking support that they offer. Our team of experts carries detailed tests on all aspects of banking, from checking out the payment methods supported to testing them for deposit and withdrawal speeds.

Every casino on our list offers excellent banking support. The ones on our recommended list support payments using methods that New Zealand players are already familiar with, and guarantee fast withdrawals depending on the payment method used.

Licensing and Regulation Data

We check each casino for details about licensing and regulation. Licensing by a reliable authority is an automatic guarantee of good gaming policies and stability.

For instance, a casino that is licensed by an authority like the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) will most likely offer a good gaming experience, while that may not be the case for a casino that is licensed in Costa Rica, for instance.

Each casino on our list is licensed and regulated by a reputed licensing authority. All you have to do is go through the list, pick a casino that you like, and register for a fabulous experience.

Other Bonuses, Tournaments and Loyalty Program

The welcome bonus is just the first bonus – what happens once you get through it? That is where all the other bonuses and incentives come into the picture: casinos that offer exciting bonuses for their existing players obviously score higher over those that don’t.

We test all New Zealand-friendly online casinos for their bonuses for existing players. What are the bonuses that they offer beyond the welcome bonus? How good is their loyalty program? Do they have an exclusive VIP program or a VIP Club? Every casino on our list scores high on all these aspects.

Welcome Bonus on Offer

There can be no better way to start your journey at a New Zealand online casino than with a robust welcome bonus offer. That is why we test every New Zealand online casino that we come across for their welcome bonus package.

Our team of experts checks the welcome bonus at every New Zealand-friendly online casino. You can be sure of a juicy welcome bonus – on your first deposit or across multiple deposits – at any of them on our list.

All casinos offer bonuses to attract new talent and retain their existing talent pool. This is true about casinos accepting New Zealand players too. The casinos that we list for you offer a wide variety of bonuses. Each casino offers an exclusive no deposit bonus that we have negotiated especially for you.

Beyond the no deposit bonus are a series of bonus offers that are available once you make a deposit into your account, starting with a welcome bonus. We discuss them all briefly in this section.

Deposit Bonuses

There are loads of cool deposit bonus offers for you to pick from at the top New Zealand online casinos. The first of these is obviously the welcome bonus, and once you get through it there are other bonuses too that you can use.

Welcome Bonus

All the best New Zealand online casinos we recommend have amazing welcome bonus packages for you. These bonuses are available after you've used up the no deposit bonus and made a deposit into your account. You can use them to play specific games and increase your bankroll.

Some casinos offer free casino credits as a welcome bonus. These credits are a percentage of your deposit and have a maximum limit, like 100% up to $500. Other casinos may offer free spins as the welcome offer. Most New Zealand casinos, however, provide a combination of free casino credits and free spins as a welcome bonus. For example, you might get a 100% match bonus up to $300 and 150 free spins.

Just like the no deposit bonus, the welcome bonus has certain terms and conditions. Make sure to fulfil them to be able to cash out your winnings smoothly. Depending on the casino, the welcome bonus might be only on your first deposit or a multi-deposit bonus, such as a bonus of up to $2000 and 200 free spins on your first 3 deposits.

Reload Bonus

Once you've used up your welcome bonus at the top New Zealand casinos, you can enjoy fantastic reload bonuses. These bonuses allow you to add more funds to your account after you've used the welcome bonus. Reload bonuses are usually offered on a single deposit. What makes them interesting is the timeframe: some casinos offer reload bonuses every day of the week, with varying bonus percentages and maximum amounts. Others offer them on specific days, like Wednesdays or weekends.

Cashback Bonuses

To give you a chance to recover some of your losses while playing at your favourite online casino, many New Zealand casinos on our list offer cashback bonuses. These bonuses are based on either your losses over a specific period, like a week or a day, or your deposits made during a certain timeframe, usually daily or weekly.

Referral Bonuses

Among the different bonuses you'll find at the top casinos we recommend, one that can reward you for a long time is the referral bonus. You can earn money by referring your friends to the casino. The referral bonus is added to your account when the person you referred signs up and makes their first deposit. Some casinos don't limit the number of referrals you can make, giving you the opportunity to earn endless rewards for a lifetime.

Pokies

The most popular games in New Zealand, like in every other country in the world, are the pokies. There are different kinds of pokies available for you in this country; take your pick from a range of 3-reel classic games, or try out the fantastic 5-reel video pokies.

Classic Pokies

The classic 3 reel games may seem too straightjacketed compared to their 5-reel counterparts, but these games too offer good possibilities of scoring wins despite coming with minimal number of paylines – some of them have just a single payline – and offer good rewards, including handsome jackpots too.

Interactive Pokies

There is a whole range of interactive pokies that take gameplay to a whole new level. Classic examples are the I-Pokies from Rival Gaming. These games all come with multiple reels and paylines and each of them has a story to tell.

The beauty of these games – the story unfolds as you play along and the more you play the more features and bonuses based on the story you are able to unlock.

MegawaysTM Pokies

Now you have pokies with the MegawaysTM engine too. The MegawaysTM engine is a revolutionary game mechanic developed by Big Time Gaming (BTG). These pokies come with a minimum of 6 or 7 reels, with one reel hanging over the reels in the main frame perpendicularly.

The advantage that these pokies offer is in the staggering number of ways you could win. Most of them offer you up to 117649 different ways to win. BTC was the first vendor to develop the MegawaysTM pokies: the first game with this mechanic was Dragon Born, which gave you 117649 ways to win.

Branded Pokies

Quite a few vendors have, over the years, collaborated with Hollywood studios and other entities like giants from the comic book universe and legends from the music industry to bring your favourite movies and heroes to life on the screen of your computer or mobile device.

Popular examples of pokies developed in collaboration with other entities include titles like Gladiator, Rocky and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective from Playtech or the Jimi Hendrix and Ozzy Osbourne pokies from NetEnt.

Branded pokies use scenes from the movies as fillers during game play or music from the hit records of the artists as background tracks.

Video Pokies

Most of the pokies at online casinos across the world are video pokies with a minimum of 5 reels; there are games with up to 7 reels or more as well.

These games come with multiple paylines – they could have anywhere from 5 to 100+ paylines; there are in fact games that offer you up to 1049 ways to win that come with hundreds of paylines.

The biggest advantage that video pokies have over traditional 3-reel games – they come with brilliant graphics and animations and are loaded with exciting features that make for riveting gameplay. These include 3D graphics, wild-powered wins, scatter-powered wins, bonus rounds, multipliers, cascading reels, avalanche reels, sticky/frozen wilds and so much more.

Jackpot Pokies

There are loads of pokies that come with fabulous jackpots. The immediate downside is that they have much lower Return to Player (RTP) values compared to the regular 5-reel games, but the advantage is huge – they offer exciting payouts that could change your life instantly.

There are different kinds of jackpot pokies for you to play at these casinos. Some of the most lucrative are the network progressive games – these are brought to you by vendors like NetEnt, Playtech, Microgaming and others and come with life-altering 7-digit payouts.

Other jackpots include local progressive jackpots – these offer lower payouts compared to the network progressive games – and fixed jackpots that offer modest fixed payouts.

Depending on the casino you are at, you may get anywhere from a hundred to thousands of pokies. Our compilation of top casinos for New Zealand players offers pokies with exciting features and there are loads of bonuses available for you to play them with.

Table and Card Games

If you are not a fan of games of chance – like pokies – and prefer games of skill, check out the collection of card and table games that are available to you. All the standard variants that you see at top online casinos are available for you. There are blackjack titles, and baccarat and roulette games as well.

There are multiple variants of each game type at the various top online casinos in New Zealand. The rules are more or less the same for all these variants, with a few changes here and there. Popular table and card games here include blackjack, roulette, Casino Hold ‘Em and other poker games and quite a few more.

Here is a brief look at some of the popular table and card games for New Zealand players.

Blackjack

Blackjack is a skill-based card game; you cannot bank on just Lady Luck always to win. You play against the dealer, and the objective of the game is to beat the dealer’s hand by putting together a hand of 21 or a number closest to it. You go bust and lose if your hand value is more than 21.

The primary hand involves 2 cards – both your cards are face up while one of the dealer’s cards is face down. Based on the value of your initial hand you may either hit – i.e. pick an additional card – or stand, which is to play with your existing hand. Once you complete your hand it is the dealer’s turn. The winner is the one with a hand of 21 or closest to it.

The standard game is played with 8 decks; there are games with lesser decks as well. There are different strategies that you can use to lower the house edge and enhance your odds of winning while playing blackjack. All the major software vendors offer multiple blackjack variants, and there are live dealer versions as well.

Poker

Poker is a game of skill and is popular across the world. The game uses a deck of 52 cards – there may be more decks used depending on the game and the number of players. You play poker online at virtual poker rooms, but there is a wide range of games offered at the top New Zealand online casinos as well.

At the beginning of each hand, you place your fixed bets and contribute to the Pot. Once the fixed bets are in, you are dealt 2 cards face down. There are 3 cards dealt face up, called the community cards. You can use these cards to complete your hand.

There are 10 different hand combinations – each of 5 cards – in poker. You place your bets on the basis of your hand strength. Based on your hand you could do any of the following:

• Fold – You fold if you feel you don’t have a strong hand. You leave the game without placing any more bets.
• Call – You match the bet that has been placed. You do this if you feel you have a good hand. You may call even if you want to bluff your way through to a win.
• Raise – You raise when you feel you have a strong hand, or if you want to bluff and scare your competition away.
• Check – You can check if the player before you hasn’t ‘raised’. By checking, you pass the action on to the next player without placing a bet.
• All in – You go all in if you have a fantastic hand or are confident of being able to scare your opponent away. When you go all in, you wager all your chips at one go.

There are quite a few exciting variants of online poker available at the online casinos for New Zealand players that we have compiled for you.

Baccarat

Baccarat is a card game of comparison. There are 2 hands – the player and the banker – and you bet on which hand is likely to win. Each round of baccarat has 3 likely results – the player wins, the banker wins or there is a tie. The objective is to put together a hand with a total value of 9 or close to it.

All face cards and 10s have a value of 0, the cards 2 to 9 have their natural values, and the Ace has a value of 1. In case the total hand value is in 2 digits, only the value of the digit in the one’s place is considered.

The game involves an initial deal of 2 cards each for the player and the banker. If the total value of the 2 cards dealt to you is 5 or less you are dealt another card provided the dealer doesn’t have a ‘natural’ hand, i.e. a hand with a value of 8 or 9.

All the top New Zealand online casinos that we have listed for you have an excellent collection of baccarat games – some of them offer live dealer versions of the game as well.

Roulette

Roulette is a game of luck; all you have to do is place your bets and spin the roulette wheel. The pocket on which the ball stops spinning determines whether you won or lost.

The American version of roulette uses 38 numbers – the numbers 1 to 36, a single zero and a double zero, while the European version uses 37 numbers – the numbers 1 to 36 and a single zero. There are loads of variants – some use two wheels instead of one, and there are live dealer versions too.

You can place multiple bets for a single spin – the house edge is different for each bet. There are lots of different types of roulette titles available at the top New Zealand online casinos that we list for you.

Casino Payments in New Zealand

Banking is a crucial part of online casino gambling, especially because it involves your hard-earned money. Since everything is done remotely, it can make you worry even more. When it comes to withdrawing your winnings, everyone wants to receive them as quickly as possible. No one wants to wait for months to get what they rightfully won.

The good news is that all the top online casinos we recommend for New Zealand players on this page have outstanding banking support. These casinos use the latest technology, like SSL encryption and secure servers protected by firewalls, to ensure that your payments and personal information are completely safe.

Credit and Debit Cards from Visa and MasterCard

Credit cards and debit cards are possibly the most popular payment methods at online casinos across the world and this is true of New Zealand as well.

Each of the popular New Zealand-friendly online casinos that we have listed for you support payments through credit or debit cards from Visa or MasterCard. Deposits with your Visa or MasterCard credit card are secure and fast; this is true of debit card deposits as well.

However, when it comes to withdrawals not all of them may support credit card withdrawals, while some of them support withdrawals only through Visa. Also, there may be a fee charged for processing by the financial institution offering the card.

Prepaid Cards

One of the safest ways of depositing funds into your online casino account is by using a prepaid card. It shields your banking details completely: you purchase the card – either at a physical store or at an online outlet – and enter the numeric code on it in the given field of your casino’s Deposit section.

An amount equivalent to the value listed on the prepaid card is credited to your casino account instantly. Deposits are fast and secure with this option, which is why it is so popular among players across New Zealand today. The prepaid cards available here include Neosurf and PaySafeCard.

One thing though – you cannot use these cards to withdraw funds; you can use them only to deposit funds into your account.

Cryptocurrency

Quite a few top New Zealand casinos, from the list that we have compiled for you, support cryptocurrency payments. Cryptocurrency payments have gained traction in the past few years because of the anonymity, security and speed that they offer for your transactions.

You can use cryptocurrency to deposit and also withdraw funds at your favourite New Zealand online casino. The primary cryptocurrencies that online casinos here support are Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Dogecoin.

American Express (AMEX)

Accepted in more than 130 countries, and with over 100 million cards in use, American Express (Amex), is a key payment method worldwide. Amex cardholders spend on average three to four times as much as Visa and Mastercard cardholders, making it of particular interest to premium and high-end brands. This payment method is widely used by New Zealanders.

E-Wallets

You can deposit funds into your New Zealand online casino account using e-wallets as well. All the major e-wallets are supported, including NETeller, EcoPayz, Skrill, eZeeWallet, MuchBetter and others.

E-wallets are great options to use because they act as an interface between your bank account and the casino, ensuring that the casino doesn’t get to view your banking details at any point in time.

You open an account with the e-wallet, load funds into it, and then deposit directly from it to your casino account. Withdrawals pretty much the same way – you withdraw funds from your casino account to your e-wallet account and then transfer your winnings out from the e-wallet to your bank.

You can load your e-wallet using the New Zealand dollar or any of the other supported currencies like the US Dollar ($), Euro (€) and Australian Dollar (AU$). Wallets like NETeller now allow you to fund it using cryptocurrency as well.

Bank Wire Transfer

One payment method that almost every respected online casino has been supporting for a long time now is bank wire transfer. Bank wire transfers are reliable and secure, because you have the power of the entire multilayered digital security technology that the banks rely on to protect your payments. They also offer reasonably high deposit and withdrawal limits.

You can use bank wire transfer as a payment option to deposit funds into your casino account, and you most definitely can use it to withdraw your winnings. All you need is an account with a bank that supports digital banking.

There are 2 disadvantages that bank wire transfers come with. The first – they come with a processing fee (banks charge it to cover some of the costs of operations and compliance), though quite a few banks in New Zealand, since 2020, have been waiving off the fee. The second hiccup – they take time, up to 10 working days in some cases.

Legal Aspects for Online Casinos in New Zealand

Generally, New Zealand has one primary gambling law. It imposes strict regulations on the industry. Even though there has been a push to ease the regulations, not much has been done yet. Gambling enthusiasts still have a lot to expect.

Initial anti-gambling regulations were imposed in the 1920s. At that time, the New Zealand government put a ban on bookmaking except for horse race betting. In 1961, the law also prohibited horse race betting. The Racing Act of 2003 changed things. It allows race and sports betting entertainment when it is offered via the NZ Racing Board.

The Racing Industry Act 2020 confirmed TAB New Zealand as the sole sports and racing bets provider. However, it allowed TAB NZ to create new betting products. This made the industry more liberal. Currently, there are six casinos in New Zealand. The first ones opened their doors in 1994.

The Gambling Act 2003 currently regulates the industry. It is strict and hasn’t been updated in a long time. No new casino venue licences will be granted according to the current laws. There is no chance for betting sites to be licensed either.