Legal betting in New Zealand

Updated October 2026
Licensed
usAvailable in US
Fast payouts
18+ Only
An empty courtroom with wooden benches in morning light

A single sentence from the Department of Internal Affairs settles the question of who may take bets here. It says TAB New Zealand — operating through its two brands TAB and Betcha — is the only provider lawfully allowed to offer racing betting, sports betting and other racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand, and that any other person or organisation offering those bets is breaking New Zealand law. That sentence stands behind section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, which came into force on 28 June 2025 after amendments passed that year. There is no licence to apply for as an overseas bookmaker, and no register in which one is listed: the regulator has not opened the door at all. The rest of this page is what that single sentence does to a person who actually wants to bet on a race or a match from New Zealand.

Racing and sports betting rules in New Zealand changed on 28 June 2025 through amendments to the Racing Industry Act 2020, after which only TAB NZ may offer online racing and sports betting.

Current as of October 30, 2026 · cross-checked against the Department of Internal Affairs’ online statement on law changes for racing and sports betting.

The statutory frame: one operator, two online brands

Two pieces of legislation do the work. The Racing Industry Act 2020 establishes TAB NZ as the operator of racing and sports betting in New Zealand, and the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025 inserted section 74AAA, which closes the door to anyone else from 28 June 2025 onwards. The change was not a tightening of an old regime; it was a replacement. The Department of Internal Affairs, which administers the Act, told providers serving New Zealand to withdraw with immediate effect.

An empty football stadium with floodlight masts at dusk
The Department of Internal Affairs states that TAB New Zealand is the only betting operator permitted to provide racing and sports betting to New Zealand customers, and that it administers the Racing Industry Act 2020.

The plain reading matters. The law targets the operator, not the customer. Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003 — inserted in the same 2025 reform — says an individual may not be convicted for placing a bet with an offshore operator that is breaking section 74AAA. That is not a green light for the player; it is the boundary the statute itself drew. No published penalty for a player who places such a bet was found. What is on the record is the regulator’s named risk list: overseas operators may be based where consumer protections are weak, may not address gambling harm, may not return unspent credits, and may not pay out large wins. That is the DIA’s own warning, not a third party’s, and it is the frame in which any comparison has to be read.

TAB NZ runs two online brands. TAB is the long-standing name, with a website and mobile apps for racing and sport. Betcha is its online sister brand, created after the 2025 amendment and operated under the same TAB NZ licence. They are not two rival bookmakers competing on price: they are the one statutory operator with two shopfronts, and an exclusion on TAB extends to Betcha because they share an account and identity system. Reading either brand as a separate choice is reading the marketing, not the statute.

Behind TAB NZ sits a 25-year partnership with Entain, signed in 2023. Entain runs the day-to-day betting operation under that agreement and shares gross profits with TAB NZ on a 50/50 split, with a guaranteed floor of at least NZ$150m a year flowing to TAB NZ for the first five years. Entain also pledged a one-off NZ$100m payment to the racing sector on signing. The arrangement has shaped how the platform runs in practice — the apps are Entain-built, the trading is Entain-staffed — but it does not change who the lawful provider is, and it does not open a route for any other bookmaker to enter.

One further point has a way of confusing readers. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 licenses online casino gambling in New Zealand for the first time. It applies to casino products and to casino products only. It does not create a sports-betting licence and it does not break TAB NZ’s monopoly. A mark from that new regime on a casino operator says nothing about whether it may take a sports bet.

What may be bet on, and what may not

TAB NZ covers racing — thoroughbred, harness and, until 31 July 2026, greyhound — and a wide spread of sports. Its published betting rules list fixed-odds and tote (pool) bets on racing, with named bet types such as Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie and Big6, plus Multis and Same Game Multis across the sports side. Live betting is available through the TAB NZ apps for selected events; the statute does not single out in-play markets, and what governs them is the operator’s own terms rather than a written rule.

A hand setting a smartphone down beside a cup of tea on a kitchen table on a quiet evening
The Racing Industry (Closure of Greyhound Racing Industry) Amendment Bill, passed on 2 April 2026, closes commercial greyhound racing in New Zealand from 1 August 2026.

Sports open through TAB NZ span the codes New Zealand actually follows: All Blacks tests, Super Rugby Pacific, NRL, Black Caps cricket, the Warriors, and the Melbourne Cup meeting each November. International football, basketball, tennis, ice hockey, American football, baseball and the listed codes behind every major betting site are present. The page does not confirm anything about politics or novelty markets.

The greyhound line closes sharply. The Racing Industry (Closure of Greyhound Racing Industry) Amendment Bill, passed on 2 April 2026, shuts commercial greyhound racing in New Zealand from 1 August 2026. From that date the regulator’s prohibition extends to greyhound bets with offshore operators as well; the closure of the racing code is also the closure of the legal market for betting on it. Any betting on greyhound racing from that date, here or anywhere else serving New Zealand, is operating outside the only lawful channel.

There is no statutory deposit or loss ceiling on sports betting accounts. The only money-side rule that applies across the whole market is operator-level: TAB NZ’s own limits in its terms, and its identity and address verification at sign-up. Betting under 18 is an offence under section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020. Land-based casinos run an age floor of 20 — that is a separate regime and the two are never merged.

Responsible gambling under the monopoly

A small set of harm-minimisation tools is built into the only lawful option. TAB NZ’s apps list deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion, and a self-exclusion applies across TAB and Betcha because they share a single identity layer. That cross-brand effect is the practical reason a self-exclusion in a TAB account stops a Betcha account as well, and it is the kind of detail a comparison with a separate-brand setup simply does not have.

The Problem Gambling Levy sits at 0.74% and is in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028. TAB NZ pays it; the figure is what funds much of the harm-prevention and treatment system around betting, and the rate is set on a published schedule rather than a year-by-year negotiation. Offshore operators serving New Zealand residents pay a separate online gambling duty (12% of profits since 1 July 2024, moving to 16% from 1 January 2027). The duty being payable does not make an offshore offer lawful here — duty and licence are different things — and the page does not read a duty figure as a safe-choice marker.

Help is a phone call or a text away. The free Gambling Helpline in New Zealand is 0800 654 655, with a text line at 8006. Both are operated for any gambler, not only the one betting through TAB NZ. Safer Gambling Aotearoa carries treatment and counselling. There is no national online-betting exclusion register: the register the casino law will require is for online casinos, and it does not extend to sports and racing. That is a real gap a reader can fall into, because TAB NZ’s self-exclusion does the work for TAB and Betcha but does nothing to stop an account being opened at an offshore brand.

The list below has two parts, and the partition is the point. TAB and Betcha are the only New Zealand-licensed sports and racing bookmakers. The other eight hold no New Zealand licence; some hold licences in Anjouan, Tobique, Curaçao or Costa Rica, none of which extend a right to take bets from a person in New Zealand. The column on what the operator’s own terms say on this keying subject is drawn from the operator’s own published materials.

Brand New Zealand status What the operator’s own terms state on the key subject
TAB TAB NZ brand — licensed in New Zealand Lists deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion in its apps; runs a racing and sports offering under TAB NZ’s statutory mandate, with Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First4, Quaddie, Big6, Multis and Same Game Multis named in its published betting rules.
Betcha TAB NZ brand — licensed in New Zealand Operates under the same TAB NZ licence; safer-gambling tools and self-exclusion apply across both brands because accounts and identity are shared.
FunBet Not licensed in New Zealand Home page names football, ice hockey, American football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, rugby and baseball with live betting; the site itself states it is open 24/7 and names no New Zealand-facing licence or complaints route.
Rabona Not licensed in New Zealand Company background places it with Soft2Bet, launched 23 December 2019; brand terms name a Curaçao licence, which gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand.
RTbet Not licensed in New Zealand Lists football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football and baseball with live betting and virtuals on its home page; no New Zealand licence is claimed.
Sportaza Not licensed in New Zealand Footer cites an Anjouan licence (ALSI-202606064-FI2); terms cite a Tobique licence (0000067). Neither licence confers a New Zealand right to take bets.
Rooster Not licensed in New Zealand Terms name Novatrix SRL in Costa Rica and an e-gaming licence from the Tobique Gaming Commission (No. 0000002); no New Zealand licence is claimed.
RoyalistPlay Not licensed in New Zealand Owned by Novatrix SRL under the same Tobique e-gaming licence (No. 0000002); no New Zealand licence is claimed.
Winz Not licensed in New Zealand Footer names Anjouan and Tobique licences; brand terms do not assert any New Zealand right to take bets.
Spinbara Not licensed in New Zealand Terms and bonus copy name no New Zealand-facing licence; promotional copy refers to euro and USDT rather than New Zealand dollars.

The pattern sits in the second column, not the third. Eight brands are lawful elsewhere and unlawful here. The page reads them as what they are — bookmakers operating from foreign jurisdictions whose terms do not extend to a customer in New Zealand — and lets the third column carry the published terms.

TAB and Betcha: one operator, two brands

The pair is the only lawful answer to “where can I bet?”, and the difference between them is the product surface, not the licence. TAB carries the full racing programme: thoroughbred, harness and — through 31 July 2026 — greyhound, plus the racing bet types New Zealand punters actually use, plus a sportsbook across the codes that follow the local calendar. Betcha is the online brand built from the same TAB NZ account and identity layer; both apps are Entain-built under the 25-year partnership, and an exclusion made on one stops the other.

For a New Zealand punter the practical question is which app to install rather than which bookmaker to choose. TAB is the older shopfront and carries the deepest racing product. Betcha is the online-only sister and has been positioned around a cleaner mobile product, sometimes with a sharper line on a particular market or a tighter Same Game Multi offering on a given week. Comparing price-by-price week to week is the right way to use the two; expecting the sister brand to be a separate bookmaker with a separately enforced duty to your money is the wrong read of what the 2025 amendment created.

Verification sits in the same place. TAB NZ accounts take a verified New Zealand address and identity. There is no way to skip this and stay on the lawful side, because the same identity layer feeds the safer-gambling tools — limits, time-outs, self-exclusion — that only the lawful operator is required to make work. A reader treating the KYC step as a hurdle rather than the visible end of a harm-minimisation framework is reading the funnel backwards.

The eight other names: what “not licensed in New Zealand” actually means

“Not licensed in New Zealand” is not a moral judgment on the brand. It is the regulator’s own classification under section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 and a description of the bookmaker’s standing on New Zealand law. The eight in the table above are real bookmakers serving other markets — Curaçao, Anjouan, Tobique, Costa Rica licences — and some have been operating that way for years. The point is that none of those licences extends a right to take bets from people in New Zealand after 28 June 2025.

The named licences on those brands tell the rest of the story. Anjouan’s ALSI numbers and Tobique e-gaming numbers are issued by their respective gaming authorities and govern activity within those jurisdictions; a Curaçao licence is offshore in the same way; a Costa Rica operating entity is offshore in the same way. The wager itself — and the bettor’s data, identity and any dispute — follows the licence. A reader’s complaint about a voided bet or a stuck withdrawal goes to a regulator in Anjouan, Tobique or Curaçao, not to the Department of Internal Affairs, and not to the Gambling Commission in Wellington.

Three of those brands belong to a single operating group and carry the same Costa Rican operator on their terms. Rooster and RoyalistPlay both list Novatrix SRL as owner under Tobique e-gaming licence No. 0000002. That is duplication, not competition. A reader facing a complaint at one brand and thinking a “sister” brand will rescue them is reading their marketing the way the marketing is hoping.

The cost of “not licensed in New Zealand” is paid in concrete things. There is no New Zealand complaints route. There is no New Zealand harm-minimisation framework required to apply. There is no New Zealand identity verification enforcing an age floor. There is no New Zealand tax status that protects the bettor at payout. The DIA’s risk list — minimal consumer safeguards, no return of unspent credits, large wins not paid — is what a reader is sitting with when an offshore brand serves a person in New Zealand. Whether the named brand is a long-established brand like Rabona, a Same Game Multi specialist, or a smaller operator, the section 74AAA position is the same: an offer to a New Zealand punter is unlawful for the operator, the bettor has no New Zealand route, and the protective framework the regulator runs does not reach.

What an offshore brand loses if something goes wrong

The honest way to read the difference is to put the statutory operator and a foreign-licensed bookmaker side by side on a small set of operations that matter.

A new account at TAB NZ takes a verified New Zealand address and identity. The same step at a Curaçao-, Anjouan- or Tobique-licensed bookmaker is whatever that operator’s KYC says, and the standard varies. New Zealand harm-minimisation rules — deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion — apply to TAB NZ because it is the only lawful operator. The offshore operator’s setting, where they offer any setting at all, is the operator’s own and is not enforceable by the Department of Internal Affairs.

When a withdrawal stalls, the customer’s complaint route is the path the bookmaker itself publishes. At TAB NZ the route ends at the Department of Internal Affairs in escalation terms and at the Gambling Commission (NZ) in complaint terms; at an offshore brand the route ends at the regulator that issued the licence, and the regulator’s effectiveness at enforcement is what the licence and the jurisdiction provide. The DIA’s risk list flags the three places this matters most: returning unspent credits, paying large wins, and addressing gambling harm — and they are not the regulator’s guesswork. They are the things New Zealand players wrote in to the regulator about in the years when the market was open.

The tax side follows the licence, too. TAB NZ winnings from recreational play are not taxable in the hands of the player — Inland Revenue’s published position — and prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is not taxable. A reader who chooses an offshore brand does not move into a different tax bracket by virtue of choosing it. They move into a different compliance regime, which is the relevant difference for whether a payout arrives at all. The online gambling duty the offshore operator pays is the operator’s tax, not a sign that the operator is licensed here. Duty and licence are separate things, and conflating them is one of the easier errors the marketing pages invite.

The promise and the limit of “safer gambling” at TAB NZ

The harm-minimisation toolkit at TAB NZ is real and works. Deposit limits — daily, weekly or monthly — are set inside the app. Time-outs freeze the account for a chosen period. Self-exclusion closes the account for a longer minimum period, and applies to TAB and Betcha together because the brands share an identity layer. The helpline (0800 654 655) and text line (8006) are free and operate at any hour. Safer Gambling Aotearoa carries treatment pathways.

What the toolkit does not do is reach an offshore brand. A New Zealand punter setting a limit in TAB does not have a limit set against a FunBet or a Spinbara account opened afterwards. That is not a defect in TAB NZ’s offering; it is the limit of having one lawful operator and a thousand other brands. The national exclusion register planned under the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 will not close this gap because it is restricted to online casinos. For sports and racing the closure is by self-exclusion at the only brand taking the bets.

The levy that funds much of the treatment system is the 0.74% Problem Gambling Levy in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028. The rate is published and scheduled. Offshore operators pay a separate online gambling duty (12% of profits since 1 July 2024, moving to 16% from 1 January 2027), and that revenue does not feed back into New Zealand’s harm-prevention system in the way the levy does. A punter who bets offshore leaves both the harm-minimisation framework and the funding that maintains it. That is the structural reason the regulator’s framing leans the way it does.

Practical decisions a New Zealand punter actually makes

The decision tree for an everyday punter is short. First, an account at TAB NZ requires a verified New Zealand address and identity: nothing else places a lawful bet on racing or sport in New Zealand. Second, the safer-gambling tools at TAB NZ only do work for the TAB and Betcha accounts a punter opens; an offshore account opened on the side is not covered. Third, a complaint at TAB NZ escalates through the Department of Internal Affairs and the Gambling Commission (NZ); a complaint at an offshore brand does not. Fourth, greyhound racing closes on 1 August 2026 under the 2026 amendment, so any bets on the code after that date have to be placed through whatever greyhound product TAB NZ holds over the wind-down period — and any offer from elsewhere is the same unlawful offer it has been for racing since 28 June 2025.

For the price-aware punter, the comparison is between TAB and Betcha. The brands run from the same TAB NZ product and trading desk and the value sits in the line they post on a given event, the depth of Same Game Multi selections on a given match, and whether one app has a tighter mobile interface. Comparing prices on a Super Rugby Friday or a Melbourne Cup card is the right use of the two-shopfront setup. Treating either as the unique price-setter is misreading the partnership.

For the budget reader, the only limit that constrains a TAB NZ account is the operator’s own. There is no statutory deposit ceiling and no statutory loss ceiling. Setting a deposit limit in the TAB app is the tool that does the work the regulator does not. Setting one and keeping it is a larger driver of gambling outcomes than the choice of brand inside the lawful market.

For the reader who has been betting with an offshore brand in the past, the question is not whether to stop doing it. The question is whether to bring the activity onto a platform that the regulator stands behind, that operates under New Zealand harm-minimisation rules, and that the bettor can complain to in Wellington if anything goes wrong. That is what the 28 June 2025 amendment was built to do, and the work of the toolkit is the answer to the regulator’s risk list rather than the risk list itself.

What the comparison of a $500 budget actually shows

The arithmetic below is illustrative. It says nothing about what a reader will actually win on any given month — no published model predicts that — and it depends on a specific kind of market.

Take a punter working with a budget of NZ$500 in a month, staked as individual bets at a flat NZ$25 each across twenty wagers. Take the two-way market at decimal odds 1.90 on each side (a hypothetical, not a quoted price). The bookmaker’s margin on such a market is computed by adding the two implied probabilities: 1 ÷ 1.90 = 0.526, doubled = 1.053, so the payout share is 1 ÷ 1.053 ≈ 0.95, and the margin is 1 − 0.95 = 0.05, or roughly 5%. That figure is what stays in the bookmaker’s pocket on every dollar staked across this market, before any individual result lands. With twenty bets at NZ$25 each, the required turnover is NZ$500, and the expected cost of clearing that turnover through a market at this margin is NZ$500 × 0.05 = NZ$25.

The expected cost is a band. At a sharper two-way market — decimal odds closer to 1.95 against 1.95 — the margin tightens to under 3% and the expected cost on a NZ$500 turnover drops below NZ$15. At a juicier market — odds further from even — the margin widens and the expected cost rises above NZ$25 on the same turnover. The point the figure makes is structural: a month’s betting at this budget and at this stake pattern carries an expected loss in the low tens of dollars on the central case, not a lottery-style payoff either way.

That arithmetic is what makes the section 74AAA frame worth caring about from a punter’s pocket. The TAB NZ product has the same economic shape as any other bookmaker at the market level — bookmakers make their money in the margin between the prices — but the difference is the framework around the margin. A reader’s complaint at TAB NZ reaches the regulator and the harms framework; the same complaint at an offshore bookmaker reaches a regulator in another country, and the harms framework does not exist for the bettor. The expected cost of the betting itself stays roughly the same, but the expected cost of being wrong about an operator is the difference that the law actually makes.

For a higher-budget punter at the same stake pattern and at a margin of 5%, the expected cost scales linearly with turnover. At NZ$1,000 of turnover it is NZ$50; at NZ$2,000, NZ$100. The band widens but the shape is the same. There is no special upside in turning over more money at the same margin; the bookmaker’s take simply grows in line with the action. The harm-minimisation framework at TAB NZ exists precisely to make a punter see the action’s shape before the budget does.

A compact jurisdictional map

The regime in New Zealand looks like this on a one-page summary:

For a punter, the practical implication is the shape of a one-rule market: one operator, two online brands, and a regulatory framework that does the things an offshore bookmaker’s licence does not. A reader who stays on the lawful side keeps the framework. A reader who does not, carries the regulator’s own risk list.

Reading the offshore marketing pages

The marketing language on Curaçao-, Anjouan- and Tobique-licensed brands has a few predictable moves and a few predictable omissions. The predictable moves: “global”, “trusted”, “licensed and regulated”, “best odds”, “fast withdrawal”. The predictable omissions: any reference to the New Zealand section 74AAA prohibition, any New Zealand harm-minimisation framework, any New Zealand complaints route. Some operators publish a Tobique or Anjouan number and then ask the reader to take the line of the licence on trust. The framework the licence provides reaches only as far as the jurisdiction that issued it. That is the consistent shape.

Two patterns deserve a closer look. First, several brands — Rooster and RoyalistPlay are the named example — share a Costa Rican operator (Novatrix SRL) under the same Tobique e-gaming licence number. A bettor who has had a problem at one of them and is thinking of moving to the other is moving within the same group. The “choice” the second brand offers is largely a marketing choice. Second, some bonus pages — Spinbara is the named example — quote a euro welcome bonus and a USDT sports welcome side by side. The currency pairing makes the New Zealand reader a non-target customer in the operator’s own terms and is a useful tell that the operator’s compliance regime is not a New Zealand one.

The editorial line is the same on every brand in this category: the offer is real in the markets the licence covers; it is not lawful in New Zealand; the framework around the bettor is the operator’s terms, not the DIA’s. Where the operator’s terms are competitive against TAB NZ — sometimes sharper boosted odds, sometimes a deeper Same Game Multi catalogue — the comparison is fair to make. Where the comparison turns on whether the offer is “safe” or “legal”, the comparison stops being a comparison. New Zealand punting is a one-operator market, and that operator is TAB NZ.

What changes between 2026 and a year from now

The text of the law is not on a one-year horizon. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 has opened a regulated casino channel from the date of enactment and is silent on sports betting. The Problem Gambling Levy’s current rate runs to 30 June 2028. The offshore online gambling duty rises to 16% from 1 January 2027. The greyhound closure lands on 1 August 2026. None of these dates is a scheduled reopening of the sports and racing market to a second bookmaker.

The thing to watch is not a calendar line but a structural one: whether DIA’s stance on enforcement is followed by an actual enforcement action against an offshore brand serving New Zealand customers. That has not happened. If a brand is prosecuted under section 74AAA and the action is reported, the risk list the regulator publishes stops being a warning and starts being a worked example. That is the upgrade that matters, not the publication date.

Two things the page deliberately does not predict. First, it does not name which offshore brand might be the next to be the subject of an enforcement action. Second, it does not assume the regulator will move against any brand in 2026; nothing in the statutory framework compels that. The structural position — one operator under section 74AAA — is the page’s working assumption.

Reading this page against the search question

A reader landing on this page from “are offshore betting sites legal” or “is any online sports betting legal” has a single short answer at the top of this piece and a longer one through the sections that follow. The short answer is that TAB NZ, trading as TAB and Betcha, is the only provider lawfully allowed to offer racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand under section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, that an offshore brand’s licence does not change that, and that a player’s own status under the law is set by the statute rather than by the brand. The longer answer is what each piece of the framework does — the regulator’s risk list, the safer-gambling toolkit, the helplines, the levy, the duty, the casino-vs-betting split, the greyhound closure — so that the short answer is informed rather than abstract.

For a reader comparing eight offshore brands under section 74AAA, the comparison reduces to a column of names and a column of licences and one firmly negative status. The brands are different from each other in market coverage and in welcome terms; the New Zealand status is the same for all of them. Reading that column before the welcome-term column is the method the framework rewards.

For a reader coming back from a past period when the online market was broader, the change since 28 June 2025 is the entire content of the answer. The framework around the bettor now exists on a single platform, the harm-minimisation tools operate on a single identity layer, and the regulator runs the system under a single statute. The closures that come with the framework — the greyhound line, the casino licence that does not extend to sports — are the trade-off. A reader who wants the framework pays the cost of the framework’s restrictions. A reader who wants the unrestricted offshore market pays the cost of having no framework.

No overseas bookmaker may lawfully offer racing or sports betting to a person in New Zealand. The Department of Internal Affairs reads section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, in force from 28 June 2025, as prohibiting any operator other than TAB NZ from taking those bets here, regardless of where the operator is based. The licence the offshore brand carries — Curaçao, Anjouan, Tobique or Costa Rica — does not extend that right to New Zealand. An individual is not criminalised for placing such a bet.

How is betting on horse racing lawful in New Zealand?

TAB NZ, trading as TAB and Betcha, is the only lawful channel for racing bets. Its published betting rules name fixed-odds and pool (tote) bets on thoroughbred and harness racing, with bet types including Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Double, Treble, Quaddie and Big6. Greyhound racing closes commercially on 1 August 2026 under the 2026 amendment, after which the greyhound betting market here ceases to exist.

Yes — through TAB NZ’s two online brands, TAB and Betcha. The operator runs a sportsbook covering the codes New Zealand follows under a statutory monopoly granted by section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020. No other online bookmaker, foreign or domestic, has a New Zealand licence to take sports bets here.

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

TAB NZ is the one operator. TAB and Betcha are its two online brands: TAB is the long-standing shopfront, Betcha is the online-only sister brand, and both run on a single TAB NZ account and identity layer under the 25-year Entain partnership. An exclusion on one brand applies to the other because they share the same harm-minimisation framework.

Are TAB and Betcha two different bookmakers?

No. They are two online brands of the same statutory operator, TAB NZ. The accounts and identity are shared across the two, and the safer-gambling tools — deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion — apply to both together. Treating them as competitors misses the structure the 2025 amendment built.

Is a player punished for betting with an overseas bookmaker?

Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003 says an individual may not be convicted for placing a bet with an overseas operator in breach of section 74AAA. No published penalty for a player was found. The regulator’s published risk list applies: minimal consumer safeguards, no return of unspent credits, large wins not paid, no New Zealand harm-minimisation framework.

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