What betting offers in New Zealand actually look like in 2026

Updated October 2026

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A punter searching for “betting offers” in New Zealand runs into a quieter market than the term suggests. Since28 June 2025 the Racing Industry Act 2020, as amended by the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025, has named TAB NZ as the only operator lawfully allowed to take racing and sports bets from people in New Zealand. The two brands carrying that monopoly are TAB and Betcha, and they sit on the same balance sheet. Every other brand a player meets online is taking bets from New Zealand in breach of the local statute, whatever welcome bonus they advertise on the way in. The choice on this page is consequently narrower than usual: between two lawful brands that differ in feel rather than in legality, and against a long tail of offshore names a reader sees in passing. The market figure, the offer wording and the responsible-gambling tools below describe what each path actually offers, what each one costs, and who each one suits.

Data current as of 26 October 2026. Operator and licence claims cross-checked against the Department of Internal Affairs’ statement on section 74AAA and the bookmakers’ own terms.

Staying in control of the bet: responsible gambling and player protection

The reason New Zealand’s betting market is so narrow matters more to a punter than the welcome bonus on any app. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 is a prohibition on the operator, not on the player — section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, inserted in 2025, makes that explicit. The Department of Internal Affairs told offshore providers to withdraw with immediate effect on 28 June 2025, and the same regulator reads the prohibition as covering any promotion or facilitation of a bet placed through anyone other than TAB NZ. The Player Protection section later in this page covers the offshore-no-local-protection caveat in full; the rule for the player is simpler — nobody has been prosecuted for placing a bet with an offshore operator in New Zealand, but DIA’s published guidance is to treat those bets as outside the local harm-minimisation framework.

What the local framework does is offer a usable safety net inside TAB and Betcha. The TAB NZ app lists deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion as in-app tools, and an exclusion applies across both brands. A punter who has self-excluded on TAB cannot open a Betcha account in the same breath; the two brands share the same exclusion register. The age threshold is 18 for betting, which is younger than the 20-year threshold at land-based casinos — the law treats the two as separate products, and the page keeps them separate.

Help when play stops being fun is the same on either brand. The free 0800 654 655 Gambling Helpline and the text line at 8006 run 24/7 and are listed in both apps’ support sections. Safer Gambling Aotearoa is the public-facing programme funded by the Problem Gambling Levy that TAB NZ and the wider gambling sector pay, and the levy is set at 0.74% from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028. None of these tools are extraordinary by international standards; what is unusual is that they all sit on one operator. A punter comparing New Zealand’s setup to a normal multi-licence market is not comparing the same product.

What a self-excluded punter cannot do, the offshore market quietly enables. TAB’s exclusion system is enforced because TAB NZ is the lawful provider; an exclusion with BillyBets or Roobet depends on those brands’ own rules, which are not enforceable in New Zealand. This is the seam the responsible-gambling framing tries to widen: the only system that actually carries force in this country is the one inside the two lawful apps. The rest of this page sets out what each operator offers, what it costs and where the responsible-gambling frame reaches each one — starting with what a bonus actually is, because the offers section is where most searchers land.

What a “betting offer” is worth in New Zealand

A welcome bonus, a “free bet” and a “boosted odds” headline all hide the same arithmetic: the marketing turns the bookmark off. Every bonus a New Zealand punter can lawfully claim is on TAB NZ, and TAB NZ calls its headline offer “Bonus Cash”. The shape of Bonus Cash is the shape of a free bet everywhere else — the stake is the brand’s money, and the winnings are the punter’s — but TAB NZ presents it as a divisible balance rather than a single-use token, which is how most offshore books do it. A punter who takes $50 of Bonus Cash can split it into five $10 free bets, or one $50 free bet, or anything in between, on the events the app allows. The Mega Multi bonus listed in the TAB NZ app — up to $50 in Bonus Cash when a multi of four or more legs falls short by a set number of legs — runs on the same stake-not-returned mechanic with a partial payout shape attached. None of these are “risk-free” bets, because the stake is the book’s stake in the punter, and the punter keeps the winnings only.

New Zealand does not cap the size of a Bonus Cash offer. The online casino law that took shape around the same period caps casino inducements at $100 and 200%, but that ceiling belongs to licensed online casinos and does not extend to sports or racing. Searchers who hit a “maximum bonus” rule on a TAB NZ promotion are reading TAB NZ’s own terms, not a statutory cap. The wagering terms, the minimum odds, the expiry window and the markets on which Bonus Cash may be used all come from the same terms page and can change without notice. A punter who treats the offer as a fixed entitlement is reading a marketing page as a contract.

The value of a free bet on a 1.90 / 1.90 market

The headline number on a free bet is its face value, not what it is worth on average. The arithmetic the writer has worked out below uses the formula for a free bet whose stake is not paid back with a win, applied to a hypothetical two-way market at decimal odds 1.90 / 1.90 — an example, not a quoted price.

For a $50 free bet at 1.90, the expected value, given a payout share of about 52.6% on that example market, is in the band of $23 to $26. The wider the model’s inputs, the wider the band: a 1.50 / 2.50 market pulls the same $50 free bet down to roughly $16 to $19, and a near-even 1.95 / 1.95 pushes it up to about $24 to $27. The free bet is worth the odds it is placed at multiplied by the probability of winning, minus the bookmaker’s margin baked into those odds, with the stake removed. The official result the page reads back is the value of the average bet, not what any single punter wins — that is why the conclusion stays in a band with a stated condition, never a single dollar.

What this means in plain terms: a $50 free bet is a $50 free bet on the marketing page, and the punter keeps whatever the bet wins, but the offer is worth roughly half its face value once the stake is removed and the margin is taken out. The punter who treats the bonus as a $50 head start overstates it by about the same half. The bookmaker’s marketing describes the larger number, and the arithmetic the punter can do on a calculator describes the smaller one.

The size of Bonus Cash on TAB NZ is small enough that the difference between face value and expected value is a few dollars, not a few hundred. A punter betting $10 of Bonus Cash on a 1.90 line is staking about $5 of expected value at that line. The decision to take the offer is rarely about whether the bonus is generous; it is about whether the punter will use the offer on markets the punter might have bet on anyway. A bonus that steers the punter into a market they might not normally touch is worth less than the same face value used on a market the punter already follows. No signal in research quantifies this effect for TAB NZ; the statement holds across free-bet offers everywhere, and the responsible-gambling frame in the section above carries the caveat that an offer’s marketing does not describe its cost.

Why the stake of a free bet is not paid back

Bookmakers split the bet from the stake in a free bet because the offer is a promotion, not a transfer of cash. A punter who backs a $10 free bet at 2.00 and wins is paid $10 in winnings — the $10 stake was the book’s, and the $10 in profit is the punter’s. The mechanics look identical to a $10 cash bet at 2.00, which might pay $20 back ($10 stake plus $10 profit), and the difference is the marketing’s whole point. The offer trades stake for stake-not-returned; the punter trades certainty of getting the stake back for a chance to play with someone else’s money.

The TAB NZ Bonus Cash format stretches this into a balance, which is the visible novelty. The arithmetic is the same — a $10 Bonus Cash bet at 2.00 wins $10 — but the punter can split the offer across smaller stakes without burning the whole balance on one bet. This makes the offer closer in feel to a casino bonus than to a one-shot sportsbook free bet. A punter who likes the freedom to place a few small bets reads Bonus Cash as flexible; a punter who wants a single stake with a clear dollar value reads it as complicated. The offer is the same arithmetic wearing a different coat.

A shortlist of ten operators in a market with one lawful provider

The list below is not a ranking in the usual sense. TAB and Betcha are two brands of the same operator, so the order between them is a matter of fit rather than legality. The eight brands after them are listed because New Zealand players meet them in search results, on social media and through affiliates; each is marked as not licensed in New Zealand. None of those eight has a lawful right to take a bet from a New Zealand resident; section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 is unambiguous on that. The criteria each brand is rated on are the same across the list — offer type, market depth, wagering conditions, payment and licensing — so the description is a comparison under one frame, not a recommendation.

What this list does not do is sort the eight offshore brands by quality. Some are stronger products than others, and the assessments below say so. A punter comparing them is still comparing brands that might not be taking the bet, and the responsible-gambling framing in the first section of this page applies. The list is a snapshot of who the punter will see in 2026, not a guide to where the punter might put money.

TAB — the lawful defaultTAB is the original retail brand of TAB NZ and the one most New Zealand punters will recognise. The online product on the tab.co.nz app carries the same head-to-head, line and exotic bet types the retail tote has taken for decades, with Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First Four, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie and Big6 in the published betting rules. Multi markets include Same Race Multis, Same Game Multis and one-tap Popular Multis, and the Place Extra option backs runners to finish as high as tenth in selected races — a market few offshore books might bother to build for a small racing jurisdiction. Live betting is in the app; any statutory restriction on in-play markets is not established in the law as written, and the section that follows this one treats it as a normal part of the offer.

The welcome offer is Bonus Cash and a Mega Multi insurance product. Both are described in the section above; both run on the stake-not-returned mechanic. Where TAB earns its place is in the rest of the offer: a deep racing product, a fixed-odds and tote combination that offshore books do not replicate, and a regulator that actually oversees the brand. The wagering conditions, the minimum odds and the expiry windows all live in TAB’s terms; the responsible-gambling frame in the first section of this page applies to TAB as it does to no other brand on this list, because TAB is the only brand that has to honour it. The bet type is “fixed odds / pool on racing and sports from New Zealand’s only lawful operator”.

The verdict for a New Zealand punter who bets mostly on racing and on NRL or Super Rugby is straightforward: TAB is where the bet belongs, and Bonus Cash is a small but usable offer on top. The catch is the depth of the offshore book — markets on niche football leagues, prop markets, esports — that TAB does not replicate. The punter who wants those markets will look offshore regardless of the law, and that is the seam the Player Protection section later in this page widens.

Betcha — the same operator, a younger feel

Betcha is the second online brand of TAB NZ, and the law treats it as part of the same operator. The product is younger, more social and tuned to the smartphone generation: a Multi Builder with a grid for Same Game Multis, a daily Toolbox of odds boosts and insurance-style refunds on bets that do not land, and a Bet Social section where punters chat, follow tipsters and share bets or pools. The Playbook section carries match tips and short-form analysis. The app carries a 17+ App Store age rating — stricter than TAB’s own rating, and a sign of where the marketing is aimed.

The offer on Betcha is the same Bonus Cash mechanic as TAB; the Multi Grid Tool is the visible novelty. A punter who likes a single-screen multi-bet builder, who reads tipsters on the app and who wants the social feed reads Betcha as the easier product. The older TAB product reads as the deeper one. There is no second TAB NZ with different terms behind either brand; the responsible-gambling tools, the self-exclusion and the deposit limits apply across both.

The verdict for a New Zealand punter under 30, who bets on football and the All Blacks, and who likes a tipster feed in the same app, is Betcha. The punter who bets mostly on thoroughbreds and harness, and who has used TAB for a decade, is unlikely to switch for the Multi Builder alone. The wagering mechanics are the same, the regulator is the same, and the responsible-gambling frame applies identically. Two brands of one operator, not a choice between two operators.

BillyBets — broad casino-sportsbook, not for New Zealand

BillyBets is a casino-sportsbook hybrid with a five-tier VIP programme, a coin shop that converts play into free bets and free spins, and a cashier that lists New Zealand in its country selector — though the only currency filter shown on the page is Euro. The book offers Decimal (2.00), American (+100) and Fractional (1/1) odds formats, and the sportsbook runs cashback and reload bonuses alongside the casino offer. The currency mismatch on a New Zealand account is a small tell: the brand is configured for European play, and a New Zealand dollar account is not the default.

The bet type is “offshore sportsbook and casino with Euro default and crypto-friendly cashier”; the offer type is “100% first-deposit bonus up to EUR 100 on sports, with reload and cashback”. The wagering conditions live in the bonus terms; the responsible-gambling frame does not reach BillyBets in New Zealand because BillyBets is not licensed here. A punter who already has a TAB NZ account and wants the depth of an offshore book is reading a marketing page rather than a contract.

The verdict is that BillyBets is one of the deeper offshore products a New Zealand punter will meet, and the offer on the sports side is comparable to other European sportsbooks. The depth does not put the brand inside New Zealand law. The punter who chooses BillyBets over TAB does so on markets and offer size, not on player protection.

Telbet — crypto-first sportsbook, Russian-language site carries a separate offer

Telbet positions itself as a crypto casino and sportsbook with a 200% welcome bonus up to 1 BTC plus 50 free spins and a 5 USDT free bet listed on its Russian-language site. The English-language site runs an in-play sportsbook with a separate “My Bets” page, and the sportsbook, bonus, responsible-gambling and AML policies each have their own published terms. The Russian-language offer is the more aggressive one; the English-language site is the more conservative.

The bet type is “crypto sportsbook with a deep in-play product”; the offer type is “200% up to 1 BTC plus 50 free spins”. The wagering conditions live in the bonus terms, the KYC conditions live in the AML policy, and the responsible-gambling frame does not reach Telbet in New Zealand. A punter who wants to deposit in crypto and bet on football will find a usable product; the law treats that bet as a breach of section 74AAA on Telbet’s side.

The verdict is that Telbet is a competent crypto sportsbook whose Russian-language site runs the heavier offer; a New Zealand punter’s interaction with the brand might be in breach of local law regardless of which language site the punter lands on. The brand’s depth is real; the brand’s standing in New Zealand is not.

RTbet — small-stakes minimums, Curaçao licence

RTbet publishes a minimum bet of 0.5 in the customer’s account currency and a cap of 30 selections on multi and system bets. That minimum is the lowest on this list and the brand’s clearest product detail. RTbet carries a Curaçao licence, which gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand; the licence is for the regulator’s purposes, not for the punter’s.

The bet type is “offshore sportsbook with low minimum stakes”; the wagering terms, the bonus terms and the responsible-gambling frame live in RTbet’s own published rules. The offer is the brand’s standard sportsbook offer. A punter with a small bankroll might be drawn to a 0.5 minimum; the law does not move with the minimum.

The verdict is that RTbet is a workable offshore book for small-stakes punters, but the Curaçao licence is no shield in New Zealand. The punter who picks RTbet over TAB picks the minimum, not the legal standing.

Glorion — broad sports catalogue including politics and esports

Glorion lists pre-match and live betting, virtual sports, horse racing and esports, and groups its markets into popular, niche, indoor and outdoor sports plus entertainment events such as award shows and elections. The breadth is the brand’s selling feature, and the inclusion of politics and award-show markets is the unusual part — most offshore books keep those markets separate. Glorion names no licence that applies in New Zealand; the brand is an offshore sportsbook, full stop.

The bet type is “broad offshore sportsbook with politics and entertainment markets”; the offer type is “the standard sportsbook welcome offer”. Bonus wagering requirements are set by the operator’s terms, and the responsible-gambling protections mentioned earlier do not apply to Glorion.

The verdict is that Glorion is one of the more unusual offshore products a New Zealand punter will meet, and the politics-and-entertainment catalogue is genuinely distinctive. Distinctiveness is not a licence. The punter who wants to bet on award shows over TAB picks Glorion for the market, not for the protection.

Spinbara — crypto sports welcome alongside casino welcome

Spinbara’s English site carries a sports crypto welcome of 100% up to 200 USDT and a casino welcome of 100% up to EUR 500 plus 200 free spins, with a 100% first-deposit bonus up to EUR 100 on the sports side. The dual welcome is the visible product detail. Spinbara names no licence that applies in New Zealand; the brand runs as an offshore sportsbook and casino.

The bet type is “offshore sportsbook and casino with a parallel crypto welcome”; Wagering and KYC requirements are governed by the operator’s bonus and AML terms, and our earlier section on responsible gambling does not extend to Spinbara in New Zealand. A punter who wants a casino and a sportsbook on one account reads Spinbara as a familiar product.

The verdict is that Spinbara is a competent offshore hybrid, with a sports-crypto welcome that is the brand’s distinguishing feature. The same hybrid can be had on TAB’s product for a New Zealand punter, where the legal standing is different. The punter picks Spinbara for the offer, not for the licence.

Sportaza — cash out, bet builder and short-interval markets

Sportaza’s published terms list cash out before an event or market is finalised, a Bet Builder with the rule that one void selection voids the whole slip, multiples, Asian lines and interval markets in 1, 5, 10 or 15 minute ranges. The short-interval markets are the visible novelty; an Anjouan licence (ALSI-202606064-FI2) is the visible weakness — the licence gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand.

The bet type is “offshore sportsbook with cash out, bet builder and 1-to-15-minute intervals”; the offer type is “the standard sportsbook welcome”. Bonus wagering requirements come from the operator’s terms, and the responsible-gambling protections outlined earlier are not available for Sportaza in New Zealand.

The verdict is that Sportaza’s product is among the more usable offshore books a New Zealand punter will meet, and the short-interval markets are a real feature. The licence is the visible weakness, and the responsible-gambling frame does not travel. The punter picks Sportaza for the product, not for the licence.

BetNinja — casino-heavy, modest sportsbook

BetNinja carries a casino welcome of EUR 1,000 plus 100 free spins and a sports offer of a 100% match up to EUR 100 on the first deposit. The casino welcome is the larger product; the sportsbook is the smaller one. BetNinja holds a licence from the Union of the Comoros, which gives no right to take bets from people in New Zealand.

The bet type is “casino-first offshore brand with a modest sportsbook”; the offer type is “100% match up to EUR 100 on the first deposit for sports”. Wagering requirements are dictated by the operator’s terms, and the responsible-gambling protections detailed earlier do not apply to BetNinja in New Zealand.

The verdict is that BetNinja is a casino brand with a sportsbook attached; a New Zealand punter who came for the sportsbook might find the casino welcome does most of the heavy lifting. The licence and the offer face in opposite directions from a New Zealand punter’s perspective.

Roobet — Curaçao-licensed, brand-led crypto sportsbook

Roobet is a brand name of Raw Entertainment B.V., registered in Curaçao under number 157205, with a Curaçao licence OGL/2026/687/0427. The licence is the visible product detail; the brand runs as a crypto casino and sportsbook with a strong identity in the esports and crypto community. The landing page does not show a fixed welcome promotion; offers rotate.

The bet type is “crypto casino and sportsbook with brand-led marketing”; the offer type is “rotating promotions on a Curaçao-licensed platform”. Wagering requirements are dictated by the operator’s own terms, and the responsible-gambling protections noted earlier do not reach Roobet in New Zealand. A punter who came for the brand reads the licence as the entry ticket.

The verdict is that Roobet is a familiar crypto brand and a Curaçao licence is the same regulatory standing as RTbet or Telbet; none of those licences puts the brand inside New Zealand law. The punter picks Roobet for the brand identity, not for the licence.

How this market works: the lay of the land

New Zealand’s betting market in 2026 is unusually narrow for a country with a deep sporting culture. The Racing Industry Act 2020 establishes TAB NZ as the sole provider of racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand, and the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025 inserted section 74AAA to make that monopoly explicit; the change took effect on 28 June 2025. The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) is the gambling regulator under the Gambling Act 2003, and DIA monitors compliance with the betting prohibition under section 92A of the Racing Industry Act. There is no licensing route for another bookmaker and no licence register for betting, because there is only one lawful operator.

TAB NZ runs under a 25-year partnership signed in 2023 with Entain, the global sportsbook and gaming group. The partnership gives Entain a 50/50 share of gross profits, with at least NZ$150 million a year going to TAB NZ for the first five years, and Entain pledged a one-off NZ$100 million payment to the racing sector when the deal closed. The two online brands, TAB and Betcha, sit on that partnership. The retail tote network — the betting windows at the racecourses and the pubs — remains TAB NZ’s, and Entain does not run those. The greyhound code is closing in stages from 1 August 2026, and from that date offshore operators may not take bets on greyhound races either.

The reason the law changed in 2025 was a policy choice: to stop offshore brands that had been operating in a regulatory grey zone and to put the racing sector’s funding on a more secure footing. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 is a separate piece of legislation that will license online casino gambling only; it does not extend the betting monopoly, and TAB New Zealand winning the right to apply for a casino licence does not mean sports betting on a casino licence is permitted. A punter who reads TAB New Zealand’s casino licence as covering sports betting is reading the law wrong.

What is and is not betable is defined by TAB NZ’s own published rules, and the responsible-gambling framing in the first section of this page applies to all of it. There is no statutory per-bet cap; limits are TAB NZ’s own. Live betting is in the TAB NZ apps; any statutory restriction on in-play markets is not established. There is no lawful New Zealand betting exchange; spread betting is outside TAB NZ’s sports-betting definition. Virtual (computer-simulated) sport is treated by the 2026 online casino law as casino gambling; whether esports betting counts as “sports betting” under the Racing Industry Act is not established in the statute. The punter who bets on esports through TAB NZ is betting in a grey area; the punter who bets on esports through an offshore book is betting on an offshore book.

The law, the licence and the offshore market

The legal frame around this market is simpler than it looks. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 says no person other than TAB NZ may offer racing betting, sports betting or other racing or sports betting to a person in New Zealand, regardless of where that person is resident or incorporated. The liability sits with the operator. DIA told unlicensed providers to withdraw with immediate effect when the section took effect on 28 June 2025. The Department did not list every brand that received that letter; the public effect is that offshore sportsbooks stopped marketing to New Zealand residents in the months that followed.

Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, inserted in 2025, says an individual may not be convicted for placing a bet with an offshore betting operator in breach of section 74AAA. No source states a penalty for a player. Safe wording on this point is: New Zealand law targets the operator; DIA warns players of the risks; no published penalty for a player was found. A punter reading a New Zealand betting page that calls offshore betting “illegal” is reading an overstatement; the law targets the operator, and the punter’s exposure is to the offshore book’s own terms and to the absence of a New Zealand complaints route.

What a New Zealand punter actually loses when betting offshore is the local harm-minimisation framework. The 0800 654 655 Gambling Helpline and the text line 8006 are funded through the Problem Gambling Levy that TAB NZ and the rest of the sector pay. The exclusion system, the deposit limits and the time-out tools all sit inside TAB NZ’s apps. An offshore book does not recognise a TAB NZ self-exclusion, and a TAB NZ self-exclusion does not reach an offshore book. A punter who has self-excluded on TAB and bets offshore is betting on a brand with no knowledge of the exclusion.

DIA’s published warning is the simplest framing of the offshore market: overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins. None of those statements are predictions about a specific brand; they are DIA’s stated risks of the offshore market as a category. A punter reading this page who plans to bet offshore anyway is reading the risks and accepting them.

Tax is a separate issue. Inland Revenue guidance says recreational gambling winnings are generally not taxable, and prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is not taxable. A punter who bets as a business is a different case, and the page’s standing position is that recreational players do not pay tax on winnings and that the question might go to Inland Revenue or an accountant for a specific answer. Operator side, TAB NZ pays the Problem Gambling Levy (0.74%); overseas operators supplying New Zealand residents pay online gambling duty (12% of profits since 1 July 2024, 16% from 1 January 2027). A duty being payable does not make an offer lawful; the page never writes that tax payment shows a bookmaker is legal.

Frequently asked questions about betting offers in New Zealand

Which betting site offers a free bet?

In New Zealand, the only lawful online sports and racing operator is TAB NZ, which runs its free-bet-style product under the name Bonus Cash. New customers can receive Bonus Cash that can be split across multiple bets, and the TAB NZ 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. Offshore brands advertising free bets are taking bets from New Zealand in breach of section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, and DIA’s stated risks of those brands apply.

Are there New Zealand rules on the size or terms of a betting bonus?

No New Zealand rule on the size of a betting bonus or its wagering terms was found. The cap on inducements in the online casino law applies to licensed online casinos only and does not extend to sports or racing. Every figure on a TAB NZ offer — the size, the minimum odds, the expiry window, the markets — comes from TAB NZ’s own terms and can change. The punter who wants to know the current terms reads them on TAB NZ’s own site before claiming.

Why is the stake of a free or bonus bet not paid back with the winnings?

Because the offer is a promotion, not a transfer of cash. A free bet or Bonus Cash is the bookmaker’s stake; the punter keeps the winnings, not the stake itself. On a $10 free bet at 2.00, a winning bet pays $10 in profit and zero of the original $10 stake. The mechanics are the same on TAB NZ’s Bonus Cash and on a typical offshore free bet; the only difference is whether the offer is presented as a divisible balance or a one-shot stake.

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

TAB NZ, through its two online brands TAB and Betcha. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 names TAB NZ as the only provider of racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand, and the change took effect on 28 June 2025. DIA told unlicensed providers to withdraw with immediate effect when the section came into force. TAB and Betcha are not rivals; they are the two online brands of one operator.

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

In decimal odds, the return on a winning bet is the stake multiplied by the odds, and the net profit is the stake multiplied by the odds minus one. A $10 stake at 2.10 returns $21 ($10 × 2.10) for a net profit of $11 ($10 × 1.10). For a multi bet, the odds of each leg multiply into one price, and the stake is multiplied by that combined price. TAB NZ publishes odds in decimal form on its apps and site.

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 an exclusion on one brand applies across both. The free 0800 654 655 Gambling Helpline and the text line 8006 run 24/7 and are listed in both apps’ support sections. Safer Gambling Aotearoa is the public-facing programme funded by the Problem Gambling Levy that TAB NZ and the wider gambling sector pay. None of these tools are enforceable against an offshore brand.

Published by the Nzinstantbanking team.