Changes are coming for New Zealand’s online casino environment, and the government is still ironing out the details of its Online Casino Gambling Bill. Some groups have called for greater care to be shown towards funding for local community activities.

If you’ve been paying any attention to the online gambling regulatory environment in New Zealand, you know that there are some major changes on the way. Over the last year or so, NZ has been slowly developing an entirely new regulatory framework for its online casino gambling environment. This legislation, called the Online Casino Gambling Bill, will allow for online casinos to be domestically regulated in NZ. 

As the government continues to polish and consider what is important to be included, some groups are becoming vocal about the needs of local communities, and are worried that some tax revenue and funding for local sports clubs and other community activities will be lost as casino gambling becomes digital.

Let’s take a closer look at what the current regulations are, what we know will change with the new legislation and why some groups are worried about the funding for community activities.

What Exactly is the Current Regulation?

Currently, online casino gambling is not domestically regulated in any way. It is prohibited to operate or advertise online casino services in or to NZ residents, but it is not illegal for NZ residents to engage in online casino gambling at offshore platforms. This legal grey area has made it difficult, both for operators who desire larger customer bases and for consumers who want to engage in online casino gaming. It has also seen a not-insignificant siphoning of tax revenue out of the country to offshore platforms. If you are curious about the sorts of platforms that NZ residents currently have access to, you can learn more on Zamsino.com, as it provides a range of some of the best online casino platforms that NZ residents can currently access.

All of the current legislation is managed under the Gambling Act 2003, a piece of legislation that is over two decades old at this point, and, as many in the NZ government feel, is in dire need of modernization. 

What we Know About the New Legislation

The new legislation, the Online Casino Gambling Bill, will introduce, for the first time, a domestically regulated online casino environment to New Zealand. The NZ government, through the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), will offer 15 online casino licenses for operators to bid for. These licenses will allow operators to advertise and run their platforms domestically within the NZ ecosystem, as long as they abide by whatever regulatory instructions are mandated by the Online Casino Gambling Bill.

Among other things, we know that the legislation will include:

• Strict age-verification and customer identification tools that operators must use.
   
• Mandated consumer protections that are at a standard equal to what the NZ government determines to be reasonable.
   
• Enforcement of responsible gambling and harm-minimisation tools.
   
• The implementation of tax on licensed operators.

At its inception, and through to early September of 2025, the new bill did not contain any rules about online operators being required to share any of their revenue with local community groups. While the majority feeling seems to be in acceptance of the general thrust of the bill, there was rising disquiet among some groups about specifically the lack of community support.

Why is There Such an Emphasis on Community Funding?

The reason that some groups were so concerned about the lack of community funding included in the Online Casino Gambling Bill isn’t too complicated. At present, there is a good deal of funding generated from physical gaming machines, around NZ$170 million, according to TheConversation. This amount accounts for a huge number of local community activities. Everything from charity programs to grassroots sports clubs to cultural and artistic endeavours is supported by this revenue.

In particular, amateur sports and community groups feared that they would be negatively affected. These groups have gotten vocal over the last year and spoke out about the potential damage that the new bill could cause them, should there be no provisions to fund local community activities with a portion of the revenue generated from online casino gaming. One of the primary concerns that was raised many times is that, as online casino gaming provides a more convenient option for gamblers, the revenue from physical gaming machines will plummet, leaving community groups with dwindling funding.

The Government Listened and Altered the Bill

At a cabinet session in October of 2025, the NZ government reevaluated some aspects of the bill, including the previous omission of any revenue for community activities and grassroots sports programs. The new bill will increase the amount that online operators are expected to pay as tax duty from 12% to 16% of their gross gambling revenue (GGR), with the entirety of the increased percentage, 4%, being set aside and used to help fund community activities.

The NZ government has made no secret of the fact that they were directly touched by the concerns of their communities, and hope that the amendments will serve to allay their concerns. The government announced that the predicted monetary amount that this percentage could provide is likely to lie somewhere between NZ$10 and NZ$20 million annually.

Final Thoughts

The upcoming bill is due to go live sometime in 2026 and will see a host of changes come with it. Thanks to outspoken community groups, the bill now does contain provisions to ensure that some revenue will go towards supporting community funding. 

Whether the amount generated from online casino gambling will equal or exceed the amount that could be lost due to physical gaming machines falling in popularity remains to be seen. The actions of the NZ government suggest that they are sensitive to the importance of this revenue for supporting community activities and could alter it in further support of their communities in the future if need be.