Online casinos in New Zealand
NZ casino players are a prime target of 100+ online casino sites. The best ones are available at Playproper.com. All of them are tested, rated and sorted!
Find out how we test New Zealand online casinos. Alternatively, check out the top-rated online gambling sites available to New Zealand residents. Play your favorite games in a safe environment, approved and vetted by our in-house gaming experts!
Best online casinos in 2024
How do we rate online casinos?
We follow our very detailed criteria when we rate online casinos. We believe consistency is key and that it’s the only way to highlight the best online casinos. Once the rules are established, there’s no hiding.
The New Zealand casinos we’ve checked so far are partially transparent in terms of their offer making the review process fairly easy. The only area where they lack are payment terms and limits. We have to put in the same effort in finding this out as we do for all other areas.
The overall score is a weighted average of the category ratings in the following five sections: games, bonuses, security, customer support and payments.
| Category | Points limit |
|---|---|
| Games | 0-25% |
| Security | 0-25% |
| Bonuses | 0-20% |
| Customer support | 0-15% |
| Payments | 0-15% |
Here are all the categories in more detail and how we approach them when we review online casinos.
Games
If the casinos show the game count, we give them points for transparency. If they don’t, we manually count them and rate them accordingly. In general, the median and the average are very close, with the average being a little under 4,000, rounded to 4,000 – and the median being 4,000 with nearly 40% being in the 4,000 to 4,500 threshold.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Average number of games | 4,000 |
| Average number of providers | 75 |
There’s always enough diversity with the average number of game providers being 75. You will come across a few that exceed 100 game studios on offer, but these focus primarily on sports betting with casino games being the cross-selling product.
Bonuses
It’s straightforward, the higher the bonus, the higher the wagering requirements you have to complete. In New Zealand, the average wagering requirement is 30x deposit and bonus amount, with 40x for free spins. This is on the medium to the high end when compared with casino bonuses in other gaming markets. However, any bonuses that are below 30x deposit and bonus amount are considered acceptable and fair.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Average casino bonus amount | C$2,500 + 100 free spins |
| Average wagering requirement | 30x deposit + bonus, 40x free spins |
| Average maximum bet limit | C$7.5 |
| Common games contributing to WR | Slots |
The maximum bet limit of C$7.5 just scratches the surface at what we can consider acceptable. Anything in excess of this is favorable. While the median above this threshold is C$8, there are a few casinos that allow players to bet as much as C$10 per round.
The lower the maximum bet limit, the faster and easier you fall victim to the law of large numbers. Even if the RTP is 99%, the house edge of 1% will eat your balance over a long period of time if the maximum bet limit is low.
Security
One of the first things we check when we review an online casino is the casino license. Besides a simple license check, we look for user reviews. Another source for reliability proof is news posts. However, in our experience only big scandals and award winning casinos get mentioned. Nobody shows interest in everyday problems.
Besides the license, user reviews and past performance, we also take a look at other community members and platforms. We as a team have been around for a short time, but as individuals, we’re present on the market since 2015.
Payments
Since New Zealand is a prime gambling market, a lot of payment providers have flocked, spoiling New Zealand casino players for choice. There are a few local payment providers that are the go-to deposit methods for both passionate and casual players, including Interac, iDebit and INSTADEBIT.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Currencies | CAD, most popular cryptocurrencies |
| Common deposit methods | Interac, iDebit, Payz, VISA, CoinsPaid |
| Common withdrawal methods | Interac e-Transfer, bank transfer, CoinsPaid |
| Fees | Little to none |
| Acceptable limits |
We recommend using e-wallets, Interac, or crypto if you plan on playing often and over a long period of time. If you just want to dip your toes, feel free to deposit with your credit or debit card. All online casinos accept card deposits, with the exception of very few that are focused on cryptocurrencies only.
For maximum security and privacy protection, we recommend using Paysafecard, eVoucher, CashtoCode or Neosurf.
Customer support
It may seem irrelevant to some, but the customer support a casino offers can be the difference between a resolved misunderstanding and a dead-end. We check the response time, the quality of the response and we also compare how user-friendly is the help center structure.
Available at more than 90% of NZ online casinos.
Archaic bust still common used. The safety net and laster resort in worst case scenarios.
Rare, available only at casinos licensed in New Zealand. Efficient, but not very effective.
All casinos have FAQs, but only a few have detailed and well-structured help centers
We also include the KYC procedure in the customer support check. Players should be allowed to verify their identity whenever they please. However, a good share of NZ online casinos still require KYC verification conducted via live chat or email.
Are online casinos legal in New Zealand?
There are two levels of gambling regulation in New Zealand, national and provincial. At the moment, it’s up to the province how they regulate or better said treat gambling. With that said, only Ontario regulates online gambling and issues online casino licenses. The other provinces don’t regulate gambling and as such, are open to international and off-shore casinos.
Popular casino licenses
A New Zealand license guarantees safety, whereas the international ones are more of placeholders. Nevertheless, we never rely on the license only. The overall rating depends on the casino’s tenure, the license, the transparency and its past performance if the casino has been around for a long time.
Kahnawake Gaming Commission
Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario
Curacao eGaming Authority
Malta Gaming Authority
United Kingdom
In general, a Malta and UKGC license can be trusted and relied upon. A Kahnawake and Ontario licenses are more relevant to the NZ market. A Curacao license doesn’t get casinos far in terms of security, however, it’s by far the most prevalent at this moment.
Payment methods and banking
You need at least one deposit method with available funds to play with real money. The payment method lists are quite homogeneous at online casinos, both in New Zealand and internationally. Fortunately, New Zealand dollars are accepted and supported with the several local payment providers, meaning there are no exchange fees.
| Payment method | Type | Deposit | Withdraw |
|---|---|---|---|
| VISA | Card | ✅ | ✅ |
| MasterCard | Card | ✅ | ✅ |
| Interac Online | Online banking | ✅ | ✅ |
| iDebit | e-wallet | ✅ | ✅ |
| Skrill | e-wallet | ✅ | ✅ |
| Neteller | e-wallet | ✅ | ✅ |
| Paysafecard | Prepaid | ✅ | ❌ |
| eVoucher | Prepaid | ✅ | ❌ |
| Neosurf | Prepaid | ✅ | ❌ |
| CoinsPaid | Crypto | ✅ | ✅ |
We recommend staying away from credit cards and using some of the alternative payment methods. Taking the prepaid route guarantees you privacy protection. A bank transfer is always available as a withdrawal method.
Casino games
Most New Zealand online casinos offer the same games. Regardless of the at times 100+ game providers, you are focused on just a handful of them. The 80% of action goes to the 20% of providers. The biggest and the best don’t allow much room for new game studios to top the charts. Overall, half of the casinos have at least 4,000 casino games, whereas about 20% of New Zealand casino sites offer more than 6,000 casino games.
The vast majority are online slots – including video slots, progressive jackpot slots and the up and coming megaways slots.
Popular game providers in New Zealand
Here are the game studios with the biggest exposure in New Zealand. Besides giving you an idea of how many games they have on offer in New Zealand, we also share what kind of games they specialize in.
| Provider | Types of games | Number of games |
|---|---|---|
| Netent | Slots, table and card games | |
| Microgaming | Slots, table and card games | |
| Play’n Go | Slots, table and card games | |
| Pragmatic Play | Slots, table and card games | |
| Nolimit City | Slots | |
| Playtech | Slots, table and card games, live games | |
| Evolution Gaming | Live games | |
| Red Tiger | Slots | |
| Big Time Gaming | Slots | |
| Yggdrasil Gaming | Slots | |
| Swintt | Slots, table and card games, live games |
Regardless of which game studio you find best, all of the aforementioned are tested, and vetted by more than one licensing and auditing agency. This combined with the background checks we conduct of every online casino in New Zealand guarantees you know what you’re getting yourself into.
Casino bonuses and promotions
Both signup bonuses and ones available as recurring promotions are in ample supply at NZ casinos. Coming across a four-digit welcome bonus package is not rare. However, we should warn you of at time the rather high wagering requirements you will have to deal with should go take advantage of these casino bonuses.
Free spins are available as part of welcome bonus packages or via the promotions pages to all players once they lose the “new player” status. No deposit bonuses are almost extinct. In all honesty, they are not that beneficial as they always come with ludicrously high wagering requirements topped with stringent maximum cashout limits.
Almost all NZ online casinos enforce a rule that mandates a higher than 50% deposit to bonus ratio. This means that you must have deposited twice as much than what you’ve claimed in bonuses.
New online casinos in New Zealand
There are new casinos showing up on an almost weekly basis. The number of casino reviews at Playproper.com grows daily as we are trying to catch up with the rest of the community. We are still a few hundred casinos short and we are closer to reviewing all of them every new day.
New online casinos are not that attractive. Besides the welcome bonus, they don’t bring much else to the table. However, if you feel like you should go for one, make sure you understand the bonus terms.
Conclusion
New Zealanders have hundreds of online casinos to choose from. Residents of Ontario can play at locally licensed casino sites, whereas players from other provinces can register and play at international and Kahnawake licensed online casinos. Both have proven to be viable options.
There are thousands of casino games to explore and more than 15 different deposit methods to get your casino account funded. Casino players in New Zealand enjoy some of the best gaming conditions in the world.
