For years, trying to work out how much New Zealanders actually spend on online gambling was a little like trying to measure water flowing through a pipe you cannot see. Much of the activity happened through offshore gambling websites, making it difficult for authorities to get a complete picture of the market.
But a lot has changed recently. New research commissioned by New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has put an estimated annual value on the country’s online gambling market at NZ$1.36 billion. The figure comes from an analysis by DOT Loves Data covering the period from October 2023 to September 2025. It’s based on consumer card transactions from one bank, which were then upweighted to estimate the wider market.
Importantly, the figure represents deposits rather than actual amounts wagered and does not account for winnings. It also excludes Lotto NZ and TAB New Zealand.
Even with those qualifications, the number is difficult to ignore. This country has a relatively small population, yet more than NZ$100 million has been flowing into online gambling platforms each month since March 2024.
By September 2025, there were hundreds of thousands of unique customers in the industry. So, what does this illustrate about how New Zealanders gamble online?
iGaming is much larger than earlier estimates suggested
Perhaps the most interesting part of the new data is not even the NZ$1.36 billion figure itself. It’s how different it looks from some of the earlier estimates. Well, as already highlighted, this market’s size was difficult to establish because so much activity took place outside the domestic regulatory framework.
Tax records identified NZ$342.5 million flowing from the country to offshore online gambling platforms in the year leading up to June 2023. There were even claims that this figure was likely an underestimate because not every offshore operator would be registered for GST (Goods and Services Tax).
The latest DIA research provides a much broader picture. Rather than relying solely on operator declarations, researchers examined payment data to estimate market activity.
And the results were outstanding! The study found that around 360,000 individual customers were active in the market by September 2025. That matters because it suggests that it’s not only a small group of high-spending customers who are participating in this practice. There is a considerably wider audience participating.
At the same time, the DIA says the market has been expanding in both breadth and depth. In other words, more people are participating, while existing customers are also making more transactions and spending more per transaction.
Online casinos are driving a significant part of the growth
Of course, not every part of the country’s broader iGaming industry is moving in the same direction. The DIA’s research shows a particularly strong increase in spending on icasino products. Standalone casino operators recorded a 38% year-on-year increase, while spending through hybrid operators increased by 22%.
Sports betting moved in the opposite direction during the period covered by the research. Spending in that segment fell by 37% year on year. That contrast is worth paying attention to because it shows that calling the entire iGaming sector a single trend can be misleading. Different forms of gambling can behave very differently.
And when it comes to the casino industry, it could be expanding rapidly for various reasons. For instance, the growing popularity of bonus features like free spins no deposit NZ has made it possible for players to explore certain games without committing as much of their own money upfront. In the long run, the games begin to feel more accessible, especially to those who are already comfortable with digital entertainment.
Accessibility is also another factor. Gone are the days when you had to travel to a physical venue to access your favorite games. Today, you can access entertainment with just a few taps on your phone from anywhere. And at a time when mobile apps have become so common, it’s easy to understand why gambling is now a part of many people’s everyday life.
Most of the money is still going offshore
Another striking detail behind this billion figure is that much of it is going to unregulated operators. Well, the internet has advanced so much that accessing these casinos is just a few taps away. And since that’s what many New Zealanders have been doing, DIA aims to bring greater oversight to this market, particularly around consumer protection and gambling harm.
Think about it: the 15 largest merchants accounted for about 82.5% of total spending, while operators associated with Cyprus, Gibraltar, Great Britain and Malta captured over 96 of market spend.
That concentration helps explain why regulation has become such an important issue. And thankfully, the country’s residents are already accustomed to online gambling, so policymakers don’t have to build the sector from scratch. The real challenge is in establishing rules around a market that is already operating at considerable scale.
Regulation is arriving as the market reaches a new level
The timing of the NZ$1.36 billion estimate is particularly interesting because the country has now entered a new phase of online gambling regulation.
The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 came into force in May 2026, creating the legal framework for a regulated industry. The DIA expects up to 15 licenses to become available, with the licensing process moving through an expression-of-interest stage, an auction, and formal license applications.
As of August 2026, the expression-of-interest stage is closing, with an auction expected in September and license applications scheduled to open in October. The fully regulated system is expected to be operational in 2027.
There is also a financial reason for the change. Inland Revenue currently applies a 12% online gambling duty to offshore operators, while the 2026 legislation provides for the rate to rise to 16% from January 2027.
In simple terms, iGaming has become far more significant in New Zealand than previous estimates suggested. So, the question now is not really whether the segment is sizeable. This new data from DIA has already answered that. The bigger question is what happens when a sector already worth an estimated NZ$1.36 billion a year moves from an offshore-dominated environment into a regulated one.
