Key Points
- The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 makes it impossible for gambling operators to provide their online casino products at home since the product is prohibited locally, thus making New Zealand’s 15 licences extremely appealing.
- The list of interested companies included Stake, Entain, Dabble, SkyCity, and people associated with the founder of VGW, Laurence Escalante.
- The successful bid does not guarantee the licence; instead, after thorough examination, the licences will be issued in 2027, and the unlicensed business will have to stop operating in December 2026.
There is something telling about the list of companies fighting for New Zealand’s new online casino licences. Several of Australia’s most powerful gambling operators are reportedly in the race, operators who, by law, cannot offer online casino games to their own Australian customers. That legal wall at home is precisely what makes a small Pacific island market suddenly worth fighting over.
The deadline for expressions of interest closed on 14 August. New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs confirmed the window shut that day, with DIA director of gambling Vicki Scott noting the three-stage licensing process “is competitive and subject to strict probity requirements to protect the integrity of the auction,” and that the department could not comment on individual participants.
The Names Behind the Bids
According to reporting by The Saturday Paper, Stake, Entain, Dabble, SkyCity Entertainment, and interests reportedly connected to Virtual Gaming Worlds founder Laurence Escalante are among those believed to have submitted expressions of interest. VGW’s spokesman rejected the claim outright, saying the company has no interest in entering New Zealand with a government-issued licence. Multiple sources told the paper that either VGW itself or Escalante-linked interests submitted, or were at least preparing to, before the deadline.
Escalante’s position is complicated by more than corporate denial. He resigned as VGW’s CEO and Executive Chairman in early July 2026 after five months on leave, following his arrest by Western Australia Police on charges including family violence, aggravated assault, burglary, and drug possession. He had bought out VGW’s remaining minority shareholders in August 2025 through a A3.2bnschemeofarrangement.VGW’saccountslodgedwiththeAustraliancorporateregulatorinMay2026showedrevenuerisingtoapproximatelyA7.3bn and net profit reaching A$656m, nearly all from US sweepstakes operations. Acting CEO Mats Johnson now leads the business.
The Wall That Sent Them Looking Elsewhere
What is far more intriguing, however, is the fact that the operators from Australia choose to target their services towards 360,000 active online gamblers in the first place. The reason for such behaviour lies in the laws adopted nearly two decades ago. According to the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 of Australia, it is prohibited to provide online casino products including slots, roulette, poker, and online pokies to customers who reside in Australia. Only sports betting is allowed; online casino gambling is strictly forbidden.
New Zealand, on the other hand, has just passed the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026, which came into force on 1 May 2026. It establishes the country’s first formal licensing framework for online casino gambling, with up to 15 licences available. DIA data, drawn from real bank transaction records and published in May 2026, puts annual online gambling spend at NZ$1.36bn, with monthly spend consistently above NZ$100m since March 2024. Of that total, offshore operators captured more than 96% of player deposits. A regulated market worth that size, with almost no licensed domestic competition, is a rare opening.
Stake, the online casino and sportsbook owned by Australian billionaire Ed Craven and domiciled in Curaçao, is one of the most prominent names reportedly entering the process. By 2024, Stake’s gross gaming revenue reached US$4.7bn according to Forbes, built largely across grey and lightly regulated markets. The company has since been building a regulated footprint, securing licences in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Italy through a combination of applications and acquisitions. A New Zealand licence would give it a rare Asia-Pacific regulated base, in a jurisdiction where its existing international scale is a genuine advantage.
Entain’s Position Is Harder to Beat
Of all the reported bidders, Entain arguably has the strongest structural case. The company already operates New Zealand’s TAB racing and sports betting monopoly through a 25-year strategic partnership with TAB NZ, sealed in June 2023, committing over NZ$1bn in payments to racing and sport over the first five years. Entain CEO Andrew Vouris told the Australian Financial Review: “We’re going to be the only operator in the market that’s able to offer sports, racing, and potentially casinos. That is massive.”
Entain CEO Stella David confirmed the company is targeting all three licences any single operator is permitted to hold. An Entain spokesperson told iGaming Expert: “We have delivered more than 50% growth in funding for racing and sport, while demonstrating our commitment to innovation and customer protection to regulators and communities right across New Zealand.”
That is a strong case to present to regulators. The complication is what sits alongside it. Australia’s communications regulator ACMA found more than 500 breaches of national self-exclusion rules by Entain’s Ladbrokes and Neds brands, resulting in a court-enforceable undertaking. Separately, financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC is pursuing Entain through the Federal Court of Australia over anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing failures, with proceedings before Justice Moore set for 30 November 2026. AUSTRAC alleged that Entain permitted 17 high-risk customers to spend AUS152mwithoutadequatechecks,includingonecustomerwithtiestodrugtraffickingwhoallegedlylaunderedoverAUS20m through the platform.
Vouris addressed the AUSTRAC situation directly, saying: “We sincerely regret that our old program didn’t meet expectations. We followed expert advice at the time but, looking back, we recognise the old program missed the mark.” Entain has since argued its compliance framework has been substantially rebuilt, and the company is presenting that transformation as part of its pitch to Wellington regulators.
How Does the Process Actually Work?
The EOI stage was just the first gate. Each submission cost a non-refundable NZ$19,000, filed through the government’s Electronic Tender Service, with applicants required to demonstrate at least NZ$7.5m in capital and provide full disclosure on ownership structures, management, and platforms. Those requirements were a deliberate filter, the DIA wanted capitalised, transparent operators, not opportunistic applicants.
Operators whose EOIs are accepted move into an ascending clock auction scheduled for September 2026. The price rises through successive rounds until demand for the 15 available slots falls to match supply. Winning a bid does not grant a licence; it grants the right to apply for one. Full applications open from October, and licences are expected to be issued in early 2027. A DIA spokesperson previously told iGaming Business: “A 2027 launch provides the necessary lead time to complete this work in a robust and considered manner, consistent with the requirements of the Act.”
From 1 December 2026, unlicensed operators who have not submitted an application must stop serving New Zealand customers entirely. Each licence covers a single brand, with a maximum of three licences per operator. Initial licence terms run up to three years, renewable for a further five.
SkyCity Entertainment, whose land-based operations include casinos in Auckland and Adelaide, has reported a significant decline in its underlying EBITDA of 22.3% to NZ$181.6 million for the fiscal year 2026, with group gaming revenues declining by 5.9%. This notwithstanding, the corporation has assured it is ready to launch operations in the new online casino industry, an indication that the company believes going digital is its way out despite its decline in land-based revenues. The Australian sportsbook named Dabble, which is a joint venture between Tabcorp and billionaire Tim Heath, was issued with a UK online casino licence in the early part of 2026.
Expert Analysis
New Zealand is not a large market by global standards, but the structure of this opportunity is unusual. A capped, regulated launch with a hard December 2026 deadline for unlicensed operators creates a winner-takes-most dynamic. Operators that secure licences gain access to a newly formalised market where offshore competition is being cut off by law. Those that miss the window face years on the outside. For Entain, which carries active regulatory litigation into the DIA process, compliance credibility will matter as much as financial weight. For Stake, the challenge is demonstrating that a company built on a grey-market scale can meet the governance standards of a tightly run sovereign regulator. The probity filter is real, and the DIA has been explicit that the process is designed to keep it that way.
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