Crypto betting in New Zealand: who can lawfully take your bet, and what an offshore crypto book costs you

Updated October 2026

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Data current as of 31 October 2026, verified against the Department of Internal Affairs statements and the Racing Industry Act 2020 as published.

The honest answer to “crypto betting in New Zealand” is short, and most of this page is unpacking what it costs. TAB NZ — operating through TAB and Betcha — is the only provider that may lawfully take a racing or sports bet from a person in New Zealand, and that monopoly has been the position since section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 took effect on 28 June 2025. Crypto deposits are not the reason an offshore bookmaker fails the test. The reason is the licence: there is none to apply for, because the law names a single lawful provider. The rest of this page is what follows from that — for the reader who wants the offshore option anyway, and for the reader who has not yet decided which path they are walking down.

How the seven brands on this shortlist compare

The set below is not a recommendation list. TAB and Betcha sit at the top because the law puts them there, and the five brands below them are presented for what they are: offshore operators whose own terms do not give them a New Zealand licence and whose services are unlawful for them to offer to people here. The reader who reaches for a row lower in the table has already accepted that the New Zealand complaints framework, harm-minimisation tools and oversight of payout disputes do not apply. Each row is read on that basis.

The table is read from the top. Two rows behave like the same operator, because they are. Five rows share the same problem from a New Zealand reader’s point of view, even though they sit under different licences and different holding companies offshore. What differs across those five is what each one’s own terms actually say about the coin side of the question — and that is the column that earns the space, because everything else about them collapses into one fact the law has already settled.

What TAB NZ and Betcha are, and why they are one operator

The Racing Industry Act 2020, as amended in 2025, gives TAB NZ the exclusive right to offer racing and sports betting to people in New Zealand, regardless of where the operator offering it is incorporated. The amendment took effect on 28 June 2025, and the Department of Internal Affairs told unlicensed providers serving New Zealand to withdraw with immediate effect. There is no licence to apply for and no licence register, because the law names a single holder.

TAB and Betcha are both brands of that single holder. TAB is the long-standing retail and online channel; Betcha is its online-only sister. They are not rivals. Treating them as competing brands misreads the statute and ignores the partnership that runs the business. Entain operates the TAB business under a 25-year agreement signed in 2023, with a 50/50 share of gross profits and at least $150m a year going to TAB NZ for the first five years; Entain also pledged a one-off $100m payment to the racing sector at the start of the partnership. The punter who opens an account at TAB and the punter who opens one at Betcha are customers of the same operator group, with the same deposit methods, the same safer-gambling tools and the same exclusion applying across both brands.

What TAB NZ accepts in payment

The question of crypto at TAB NZ is short. The law does not block crypto deposits; TAB NZ’s own terms simply do not list any. The methods a punter meets at the cashier are bank transfer, debit card, the operator’s own prepaid instruments and any in-app wallet feature — sourced from TAB NZ’s published terms and the app store listing for the TAB app. The punter wanting to deposit Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT or anything similar is asking the wrong operator, and that is the position whether the punter is looking at TAB or Betcha. The two brands are the same shop with different windows.

What that means in practice: a punter holding crypto who wants to bet through a New Zealand-regulated channel has to convert to fiat before depositing. The conversion is not free, and the spread on the conversion is a real cost the punter eats before the bet is even placed. The other consequence is that crypto’s usual pitch — pseudonymity, no chargeback, fast settlement — does not survive the transition. TAB NZ requires a verified New Zealand address and ID to open an account, and every deposit moves through a New Zealand payment rail.

What the TAB NZ app and site carry

The TAB NZ app lists racing form, Blackbook, Jockey Challenge tools, Trackside live race streaming with in-app betting and a simplified wallet for deposits and withdrawals. The same product is what Betcha delivers under its own brand. Fixed-odds and tote (pool) bets are both available; the betting rules define Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First4, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie, Big6 and the multis and Same Game Multis that ride on top of them. The pricing is in decimal form, and the dividend is the tote payout. Live betting sits inside the apps. None of that is crypto-specific; it is what a New Zealand punter gets because there is no other lawful place to get it.

What the law actually says about a New Zealander and an offshore crypto book

Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020 makes it an offence for any person other than TAB NZ to offer racing betting, sports betting or other racing or sports betting to a person in New Zealand, no matter where that person is resident or incorporated. The Department of Internal Affairs monitors compliance with the prohibition under section 92A. The law targets the operator, not the website, and New Zealand does not geo-block offshore bookmaker sites. A punter who reaches one has reached it on their own device, through their own internet connection, and the law’s response is to the operator serving them, not to the punter clicking through.

The Gambling Act 2003, section 19(4) — inserted in 2025 — states that an individual may not be convicted for placing a bet with an offshore betting operator in breach of section 74AAA. No source states a published penalty for a player. The honest framing, and the framing DIA uses, is that New Zealand law targets the operator; the agency warns players of the risks; no published penalty for a player was found. The reader is advised not to take from that a green light, and is advised not to take from it a prohibition. The page writes what the law says, not what it does not.

What the law does say, plainly, is that a bookmaker without a New Zealand licence has no licence to lose by mistreating a New Zealand punter. The Department of Internal Affairs warns that overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins. New Zealand’s harm-minimisation framework — deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion across brands — does not extend to them. The exclusion that TAB NZ applies across TAB and Betcha stops at the offshore edge of the business, because there is no edge on the New Zealand side for those brands to extend into.

The greyhound closing and what it does to the menu

Greyhound racing is being closed in stages from 1 August 2026, and from that date offshore operators may not take bets on greyhound races either. TAB NZ’s racing codes — thoroughbred, harness and greyhound — are reduced by a third, and the offshore brand that was offering greyhound bets to New Zealand punters was already in breach of section 74AAA before the closing; from August, the breach has one fewer market attached.

What you lose by betting with a bookmaker that has no New Zealand licence

Five things, and they are not equally important to every punter.

The first is the harm-minimisation framework. TAB NZ’s app provides deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion; the exclusion applies across TAB and Betcha. Offshore books carry their own tools where they carry any, and a New Zealand punter who has self-excluded at TAB NZ has not self-excluded at Telbet, Winz, Rooster, Thunderpick or Roobet. The Gambling Helpline (0800 654 655, text 8006) and Safer Gambling Aotearoa are free New Zealand services; offshore books do not refer to them and do not have to. A punter who hits a wall with an offshore brand has no New Zealand complaints route to walk through.

The second is the complaints and payout framework. TAB NZ sits under the Gambling Act 2003 and the Racing Industry Act 2020; disputes route through New Zealand processes and ultimately to the courts. Offshore disputes route through the licence the offshore brand actually holds — Anjouan, Tobique, Curaçao, the Union of Comoros — and the punter chases a payout under that jurisdiction’s rules. The DIA warning that overseas operators may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins is the regulator’s own phrasing of this gap.

The third is the consumer-protection overlay. New Zealand’s broader consumer law, the unfair-terms oversight and the advertising code’s reach do not extend to an Anjouan-licensed or Curaçao-licensed brand. The Advertising Standards Authority’s Gambling Advertising Code applies to betting advertisements, with rules on audience composition, harm and terms disclosure; that reach also stops at the border. An offshore bookmaker advertising to New Zealand punters is not under the code, and DIA’s reading of the prohibition covers promoting or taking such bets for another operator.

The fourth is the tax and accounting position. For the player, Inland Revenue treats recreational gambling winnings as generally not taxable and TAB prize money on horse, dog and trotting races as not taxable; a punter who bets as a business is a different case and is advised to consult Inland Revenue or an accountant. The same Inland Revenue guidance covers disposal of cryptoassets by individuals as a chargeable event for Capital Gains Tax — selling, swapping for another token or spending them on goods or services. A punter funding an offshore account with crypto and withdrawing winnings in crypto is making multiple disposals, and the record-keeping falls on the punter, not on the bookmaker. Offshore operator side: an overseas operator supplying New Zealand residents pays online gambling duty (12% of profits since 1 July 2024, rising to 16% from 1 January 2027). A duty being payable does not make an offer lawful — a reader is advised not to mistake a tax receipt for a licence. The point-of-consumption charge on offshore racing and sports bets ceased on 30 June 2026.

The fifth is what the operator can keep. TAB NZ’s terms are public, New Zealand-supervised and enforceable. An offshore brand’s terms are what its own contract says they are, and the punter signs them on the brand’s site without a New Zealand backstop. Withdrawal caps and bonus conditions that look similar across the two groups are not similarly enforceable. The punter reading the fine print of an offshore book is reading it as a contract with that operator, not as a New Zealand-regulated term.

The crypto side of the question

Crypto betting and crypto bookmakers are usually pitched on three points: speed, pseudonymity and global access. Each one of those has a New Zealand wrinkle that the pitch tends to leave out.

The pseudonymity is partial even on a fully crypto-native site. Bitcoin’s ledger is public; addresses are pseudonymous, not anonymous, and chain-forensic firms routinely trace flows for law-enforcement and commercial clients. A punter who deposits Bitcoin from an exchange account that knows their name has not purchased anonymity by routing through the betting site. Bitcoin’s protocol was designed by a person or persons operating under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity is not established; that origin story is not a privacy architecture, and using the asset does not carry the original author’s anonymity forward. Bitcoin’s protocol caps total issuance at 21 million coins, with the final fraction expected to be mined around the year 2140, and the network secures its ledger through proof-of-work — facts a reader is advised to hold alongside any pitch that calls the asset “untraceable”.

The speed is uneven. Crypto network confirmation times are faster than a bank wire, but they are not free of congestion, fee spikes or chain-side delays. The punter who pays a high fee to clear a deposit before a race starts has paid for speed in the most literal way. Offshore brands may also queue withdrawals for review on their own terms, and “instant” withdrawals are usually instant only after the brand’s own pending window.

The global access is the part that breaks first in New Zealand. Section 74AAA targets the offer to a person in New Zealand, and the offer is what the offshore brand is making the moment it accepts the deposit. The crypto rail makes the offer easier to deliver; it does not make it lawful.

What the United Kingdom’s framework shows by contrast

The United Kingdom is not New Zealand’s regime, but the UK has done more written work on cryptoasset supervision than most, and the comparison is useful for what a regulator reaches for. The FCA became the anti-money-laundering supervisor of UK cryptoasset businesses on 10 January 2020, under the amended Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017. HMRC published its first cryptoassets tax guidance for individuals on 19 December 2018, since expanded into a dedicated Cryptoassets Manual, and treats disposal of cryptoassets by individuals — selling, swapping for another token or spending them on goods or services — as a chargeable event for Capital Gains Tax. The FCA has stated it will open applications for authorisation of cryptoasset firms under a new FSMA-based regime on 30 September 2026, with the regime due to start on 25 October 2027. None of that regime extends to New Zealand, and the punter is advised not to borrow it as a shield; the comparison matters because it shows what a regulator reaching for the question actually asks, and New Zealand has not been asked the same set of questions on crypto specifically.

What is and is not covered, and where to check before you bet

What is lawful to bet on in New Zealand is racing and sports betting through TAB NZ. Fixed-odds and tote bets are both available, and the published betting rules cover the bet types a punter will meet: Win, Place, Each Way, Quinella, Exacta, Trifecta, First4, Double, Treble, Daily Double, Running Double, Quaddie, Big6 and the multis and Same Game Multis. Live betting is in the apps. The ban covers events held inside and outside New Zealand.

What is not established by the inputs is just as important, and a careful punter reads it before clicking through. Whether a particular in-play market is restricted at TAB NZ is not established in writing outside the operator’s own rules. Bets on politics and novelty markets are not established either way. Whether esports betting is “sports betting” under the Racing Industry Act is not established — the law has not been tested against that market, and the punter who bets on esports through an offshore brand is not just betting through an unlicensed operator; they are betting through one on a market whose New Zealand status has not been pinned down. Virtual (computer-simulated) sport is treated by the 2026 online casino law as casino gambling, and the casino law does not extend the betting monopoly or relax it. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 licenses online casino gambling only and does not license sports betting.

TAB NZ has no statutory per-bet cap; limits are the operator’s own. That is one of the few places where the inputs explicitly say “TAB’s own terms”, and the punter checking before betting is advised to check TAB’s own terms rather than assume a published limit exists.

Who the offshore brands in the table actually are

Five operators sit below TAB and Betcha in the comparison table. Each is presented for what it is — its own licence, its own terms and what those terms say about crypto — not as a route a New Zealand reader is advised to walk down. The framing is the same on every line: the brand’s own licence is named, the New Zealand status is stated, and the reader is left to weigh the gap between those two facts.

Telbet

Telbet describes itself as a crypto casino and sportsbook, with a welcome offer of 200% up to 1 BTC plus 50 free spins and a 5 USDT free bet on its Russian-language site. The New Zealand position is the position in the table: not licensed in New Zealand, and only TAB NZ may offer racing or sports betting to a person in New Zealand under section 74AAA. A New Zealand punter at Telbet has no New Zealand complaints route and no harm-minimisation framework reaching them. The brand’s own licence, if any, is what its own terms state.

Winz

Winz states in its footer that it holds a licence delivered by Anjouan and Tobique. The holder is the entity behind those two licences. New Zealand readers are advised to read those two licences for what they are — authorisations offshore, not in New Zealand — and read the section 74AAA status of the offer to a New Zealand punter for what it is: the offer itself is the breach. Crypto deposits and withdrawals are the brand’s own design, not a New Zealand-supervised rail.

Rooster

Rooster is operated by Novatrix SRL, a company incorporated in Costa Rica with registration number 3-102-893958, under e-gaming licence No. 0000002 issued by the Tobique Gaming Commission. The terms list the operator and the licence; the New Zealand status is what the table says. Rooster’s withdrawal limits in NZD — from 1,000 per day and 13,000 per month at level 1, scaling to 3,000 per day and 35,000 per month at level 5 — are the brand’s own structure. They are not a New Zealand-supervised cap.

Thunderpick

Thunderpick is owned and operated by Paloma Media B.V., a Curaçao company with company number 146988, licensed by the Curaçao Gaming Authority under licence number OGL/2024/677/0722. The brand is positioned as a crypto-first sportsbook and esports operator. The Curaçao licence is what the brand’s own terms state. The New Zealand status is what the table says.

Roobet

Roobet is a brand name of Raw Entertainment B.V., registration number 157205, Korporaalweg 10, Curaçao, licensed under Curaçao licence OGL/2024/687/0427. Roobet’s positioning is crypto casino and sportsbook. The Curaçao licence is what the brand’s own terms state. The New Zealand status is what the table says, and the reader is advised to weigh what a Curaçao licence does and does not cover when the punter is sitting in Auckland.

What a punter who chooses TAB NZ gets that an offshore brand does not

The reason the monopoly reads the way it does, when the rule is held up against the reader’s actual choices, is the package the monopoly delivers rather than the rule alone. TAB NZ pays a Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74% — in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028 — and the levy is what funds the New Zealand gambling-harm response. The punter’s stake at TAB NZ is contributing, through the levy, to the same harm-minimisation framework the punter relies on if they hit a wall. Offshore books do not pay the New Zealand levy. They may pay online gambling duty on profits from New Zealand residents (12% since 1 July 2024, rising to 16% from 1 January 2027), but a duty is not a levy and is not a fund for harm minimisation in the jurisdiction the punter sits in.

The punter at TAB NZ has an account opening that requires a verified New Zealand address and ID; that same fact is what gives the punter the protection of the framework. A punter with no verified address on file is a punter with no New Zealand recourse if something goes wrong. The verification is not friction for its own sake. It is the precondition for everything that comes after it.

The punter at TAB NZ has a self-exclusion that applies across both TAB and Betcha, with the operator’s own responsibility for honouring it. The punter at an offshore brand has whatever self-exclusion that brand chooses to offer, applied through that brand’s own terms, with no New Zealand backstop and no cross-brand reach. Where the punter’s problem crosses the New Zealand border, the operator does not.

The picture under the surface

Two things are worth saying out loud. The first is that the New Zealand monopoly has nothing to do with crypto, and a reader who decides that crypto is the heart of the question is reading the wrong paragraph. The monopoly is about who may take the bet. The crypto question is about how the punter funds the bet and how the punter gets paid. TAB NZ is not licensed for crypto because the law does not need to license crypto specifically; the law has closed the question at the operator level, which makes the funding-rail question downstream of it.

The second is that an offshore crypto book is not, by being crypto, more or less risky than an offshore fiat book. The risks in the offshore column of the table are the same risks on every row: no New Zealand licence, no New Zealand complaints route, no New Zealand harm-minimisation reach, an enforcement gap on payout disputes, and an offer that is unlawful for the operator to make to a person in New Zealand. The crypto rail changes the marketing and the speed. It does not change the licence the operator holds, and it does not change the gap.

How to use this page in practice

A punter who has decided to bet with TAB NZ is advised to read TAB’s own terms before claiming any promotion, and check the operator’s deposit and withdrawal methods in the app. The problem-gambling levy funded through TAB’s stake is paying for the harm-minimisation framework the punter can call on if needed; the punter’s stake is doing more work than the punter usually notices.

A punter who has decided to bet offshore is taking a position the law has already taken a position on. The punter is not prosecuted under section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003. The punter is also not under New Zealand consumer law, not under the New Zealand advertising code, not under the New Zealand harm-minimisation framework, and not under the New Zealand tax-and-disputes machinery if the brand refuses a payout. The punter is also funding the bet through a rail that HMRC treats as a chain of chargeable events for Capital Gains Tax, with the record-keeping falling on the punter.

A punter who is undecided is the punter this page is most honestly written for. The honest position is not “TAB NZ or offshore” as if the two were products on a shelf. It is that one of them is a New Zealand-regulated product and the other is not, and the choice between them is a choice about which regulatory framework the punter wants to sit under. The table at the top of this page makes the licence status legible at a glance. The rows below the table make the consequences of that status specific.

What the comparison leaves out, on purpose

A reader who reaches the end of this page expecting a verdict on which offshore crypto book is the best one for a New Zealand punter will not find one. The reason is in section 74AAA: there is no lawful offshore option for a New Zealand punter, and ranking the unlawful ones as if they were competing products is the move the inputs explicitly forbid. The page ranks the lawful option at the top and lists the others for reference; the reader comparing them is comparing an offer that is unlawful for the operator to make with offers that are lawful at the offshore end. The reader’s choice is about which framework sits behind the bet, not about which brand on the offshore side has the best bonus.

The same logic excludes any “best crypto betting site for New Zealand” framing the reader might come to the page expecting. There is no such site, because the lawful site for New Zealand is not a crypto site. The offshore brands that do take crypto are not in a position where “best” is the question.

Frequently asked questions

How does crypto betting actually work, in plain terms?

Crypto betting is funding a betting account with a cryptocurrency — typically Bitcoin or a stablecoin — rather than with a bank transfer or card. The punter deposits coins to a wallet address the brand provides, places the bet, and withdraws any winnings back to a coin wallet. The brand’s own terms control which coins are accepted, the minimum deposit, the confirmation time and the withdrawal cap. The speed is usually faster than a bank wire but slower than the marketing implies, because the brand’s own pending window sits on top of the network’s. The pseudonymity is partial: the ledger is public and addresses are pseudonymous, not anonymous, so chain forensics can trace flows when called for.

Which payment methods does TAB NZ accept, and where are they listed?

TAB NZ’s payment methods are listed in the operator’s own terms and inside the TAB app. They are not crypto methods. The set a punter meets at the cashier is bank transfer, debit card, the operator’s own prepaid instruments and any in-app wallet feature. The punter wanting to deposit Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDT has reached the wrong operator. The same is true at Betcha, which is the other online brand of the same operator group.

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

TAB NZ, operating through TAB and Betcha, is the only provider that may lawfully take racing and sports bets from a person in New Zealand. The position comes from section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, which took effect on 28 June 2025. There is no licence to apply for and no licence register, because the law names a single lawful holder. Any other brand taking such bets from a person here is doing so unlawfully for the operator; an individual player is not convicted under section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003, but the punter also has no New Zealand protection.

What does a player lose by betting with a bookmaker that has no New Zealand licence?

The punter loses the harm-minimisation framework, the New Zealand complaints route, the consumer-protection overlay, the advertising-code oversight and the enforceability of terms under New Zealand law. TAB NZ’s self-exclusion applies across TAB and Betcha and stops at the offshore edge of the market; an offshore brand’s own self-exclusion is what that brand’s terms say it is. The Department of Internal Affairs warns that overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins. The punter is also funding the bet through a rail that creates a chain of chargeable events for Capital Gains Tax, with the record-keeping on the punter.

From what age can bets be placed with TAB NZ, and what is checked when opening an account?

TAB NZ takes bets from people aged 18 and over; betting under 18 is an offence under section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020. The age for land-based casinos is 20, and the two are not to be merged. Opening a TAB NZ account requires a verified New Zealand address and ID; the verification is the precondition for the harm-minimisation framework and the New Zealand complaints route that ride on top of it. Offshore books set their own age rules, often 18, but those rules sit inside the offshore operator’s own terms, with no New Zealand backstop.

Are betting winnings taxed in New Zealand?

Recreational gambling winnings are generally not taxable in New Zealand, and prize money from TAB horse, dog and trotting races is not taxable. A person who bets as a business is a different case, and the reader in that position is advised to consult Inland Revenue or an accountant. Cryptoasset disposals — selling, swapping for another token or spending crypto on goods or services — are treated as chargeable events for Capital Gains Tax, and that rule applies whether the underlying bet is recreational or business. The punter funding an offshore account in crypto and withdrawing in crypto is making multiple disposals; the record-keeping falls on the punter.

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