Until the middle of 2025, if you wanted to bet on sports from New Zealand, whether
on the All Blacks or any other team, it was important to be able to register your
account with a betting site that offered accounts in New Zealand Dollars so you could
deposit, bet and withdraw in your home currency, so you could save up to 5% in exchange
fees on each transaction.
Many New Zealanders simply registered with highly visible brands that operate in
nearby Australia, but the reality is that with those companies, you’d have played
in Australian Dollars rather than New Zealand Dollars. Furthermore, Australian-serving
companies create special .com.au sites that stripped out casino and poker offerings
due to Australian regulations. You could have enjoyed these offerings by signing
up with the main brand at their regular international website. Kiwis could simply
get more choice with the regular sites while saving on currency conversion fees with
the top brands that we recommended at one time. But that’s now in the past.
However, June 2025 has brought about big legal changes to both New Zealand sports
betting and what will be a new market of legal NZ online casinos. If you want to
bet on sporting events online now, offshore sites are no longer legal options for
Kiwis. Only TAB NZ and Betcha brands are legally allowed to serve New Zealanders.
This is a big change, as offshore sites were allowed by NZ law to serve you. Somewhat
strangely, the most popular online gaming type, online pokies and casinos got different
treatment from the government with legal changes at the same time in 2025. A new
local market of casino websites is set to open in New Zealand with up to 15 license
holders from July of 2026. Until then, Kiwis may legally play at all offshore casino
sites until those new license holders get set up in the new market. So you’ll have
some choice open in terms of casino gaming, but essentially no choice with your sports
betting, as the latter two brands come from the same gaming company.
About the New Zealand Dollar
The New Zealand dollar with sign '$', code 'NZD', is the currency and legal tender
of New Zealand and the Cook Islands. Within New Zealand, it is almost always abbreviated
with the dollar sign ($). Sometimes 'NZ$' is used to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated
currencies.
New Zealand Dollar History
The New Zealand Dollar was introduced in 1967 by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
Prior to that, the New Zealand pound was the country's currency and had been distinct
from the British Pound since 1933. The main change that occurred with the switch
from the pound to the dollar was the decimalization of the dollar, as the pound worked
from a system where a pound was divided into 20 shillings and each shilling divided
into 12 pence. New Zealand wanted the simplicity of a decimal-based currency. At
first, the NZD was pegged against the US Dollar at the rate of 1.62 USD to 1 NZD.
This rate changed several times until 1985 when it began to float freely in the
market.
New Zealand Dollar as Traded in World Currency Markets
The New Zealand dollar, sometimes called the 'Kiwi dollar', is consistently one of
the 10 most traded currencies in the world. Despite the proximity in geography to
Australia, which has its own heavily traded currency, the foreign currency that is
most traded against the New Zealand dollar is the US Dollar. View NZD to USD rate
now. View NZD to AUD rate now.
