Key Points
- A whole bunch of players are vying for one of New Zealand’s 15 online casino licences, after winning the right to apply at an auction price of $15 mil per go; that’s $15 mil upfront as soon as they put in their application.
- Entain’s subsidiary Playvia has two of the coveted spots, while TAB NZ, whose online betting is run by Entain, is separately bidding to get one too.
- Operators without a pending application won’t be able to keep serving Kiwi punters from 1 Dec 2026, so any offshore operators who’ve been left behind are already counting down.
It’s Entain, SkyCity and Co Who Won the Right to Bid for New Zealand’s 15 Online Casino Licences
A huge 32 outfits thought they were in with a shot, but on 13 October the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) let us know which 11 actually made the cut. And the prize wasn’t even a licence in itself, just permission to put in a bid, at $15 mil a pop.
That’s before we even consider it’s not a done deal… they still have to put in their bids, with all the hard work and due diligence that entails. Entain, Stake, Super Group and SkyCity are just a few of the industry heavyweights who made the cut, and are already eyeing off the New Zealand market.
Who Got In, and How They Did It?
Betway’s parent company Super Group went big, snapping up three spots through Baytree Interactive, its NZ arm. That’s the most any one company is allowed to bid for.
Entain took a two-pronged approach: one of their subsidiaries, Playvia Gaming (NZ) Limited, got two spots, while TAB New Zealand went solo and grabbed a third. And it’s worth noting, TAB NZ is still New Zealand’s statutory online betting provider, while Entain runs its online betting arm under a super-long 25-year partnership.
Entain had already had a sniff at the NZ market with a couple of soft launches, BlackRush Casino and FoxySpins, but reckons this is a “major milestone”. And yeah, they still have a lot of hard work ahead of them to turn that permission to bid into a licence.
SkyCity, the Auckland casino giant, did it the old-fashioned way, using two separate subsidiaries to bid. And investors were pretty pleased with the result; SkyCity shares went up by over 2% in one day, closing at 68 cents.
Jason Walbridge, the CEO of SkyCity, seemed pretty confident in the SkyCity brand. “We know Kiwi punters trust us,” he said. “Now we just need to combine that with the skills and local knowledge we already have to make a go of it online.”
Stake NZ was the only other of the big players to make the cut, aside from the usual suspects like Entain and SkyCity. They reckon this is part of a wider push; Stake has been getting bigger in other places too, like Alberta, Argentina and Mexico.
The smaller outfits who made the cut are Rock Swift Group, who used to be licensed in Kahnawake, and a couple of other unknowns like SkillOnNet from Malta, and LCKY, who used to be Glitnor Group.
Setting the NZ$15m Price
The DIA conducted an ascending clock auction where the price increased step-by-step. At each step, bidders would choose to stay in or leave, and when the price reached the point of demand equal to the 15 licences, the process would end.
“Since the price changes step-by-step, the resulting price clearly reflects the willingness of the remaining bidders to pay,” the department commented, as reported by SiGMA News. Importantly, the agency reminded that the win does “not guarantee that a license will be granted.”
It is payable upon submitting the application, and it has a detail that was overlooked in some of the reports. In its filing, SkyCity made it clear that the price does not include GST, meaning that its two applications cost NZ$30m in fees.
Industry sources explained to NEXT.io that the price seems rather steep compared to that in Brazil, even though the comparison has to be made carefully. While the Brazilian fee of R30mincludeduptothreebrandsfor5years,theNZ15m in New Zealand can get a person only one brand for up to three years.
Much before the bids started to come in, the barriers to participation were already high. At the expression of interest stage, the capital requirement of operators was NZ7.5m, plus a non-refundable NZ19,000 fee.
The Deadline of 1 December for Offshore Operators
As of 1 December 2026, all providers that do not apply for licensing must stop providing online casino games to New Zealanders. The applicants can continue their operations until the DIA grants a temporary exemption.
They are also prohibited from advertising, according to the DIA guidelines, which confirm that online casino advertising is currently prohibited in New Zealand. The applications have to include the business plan, plus the plans on advertising, consumer protection, harm minimisation and compliance.
Operators are required to provide daily, weekly and monthly limits of play, implement breaks during play sessions, offer self-exclusion and ban credit card gambling payments.
The licenses are supposed to be obtained starting in early 2027, but the DIA has yet to confirm the exact date of opening the market.
Why Wellington Opened the Door?
As Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden explained to WellPlayed, the bill closes “the gambling tax loophole” for licensed operators.
The money involved explains Van Velden’s haste. According to card data from one bank extrapolated to the whole market, foreign online gambling expenditure in New Zealand stood at NZ$1.36 billion, with hybrid casino-sportsbook accounts accounting for 77% of the spend over the year until September 2025. The expenditure is calculated based on deposits, not bets or winnings, and excludes the operations of Lotto NZ and TAB.
In her FY25 earnings call, Entain CEO Stella David had already dropped the other shoe. “I think the opportunity for us is significant because we’ll be the only player who will be able to do cross-sell,” she noted.
Expert Analysis: A Level Playing Field, or a Head Start Under Another Name?
We believe that the auction was on paper a level playing field, but in practice it favoured some participants. In its FY25 earnings call, Stella David told analysts that Entain expects to be the only player able to cross-sell. TAB NZ enjoys its own privilege, however, and Entain operates TAB and supports the two Playvia bids. If all three players win, one entity may cross-sell its casino games to the customers of the sole licensed sportsbook. Our position is simple – the DIA needs to specify its rules regarding cross-sell among these operators prior to issuing any license.
There is irony in SkyCity’s win. According to RNZ documents, SkyCity once urged ministers to limit the licenses to five and restrict them to operators with a local presence. Now that argument has failed, SkyCity has to compete against global brands that it tried to keep out of its territory. In our view, such an outcome can only be good news for the players, no matter what it means for SkyCity’s margins.
Finally, there is Stake – the entity whose participation in the bidding process we will follow most closely. Its New Zealand rights became available four days after a Brazilian appeals court lifted the ban on Stake.
Price is another factor. With NZ$15 million per brand before GST, smaller operators were effectively shut out. It looks like the plan. Our concern, however, is whether New Zealand chose the deepest pockets or the safest operators as well.
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