NZ Online Games – How to Pick the Best One for You

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Remote betting and iGaming continue to grow in popularity across the globe, particularly in largely unregulated markets such as New Zealand.

A relative lack of uniform regulation has certainly made NZ popular among a raft of overseas betting brands, meaning we’ve seen significant increases in annual gambling expenditure just six years later.

The market subsequently hit $350 million last year, while it’s expected to peak at $600 million by the year 2025. This is also creating an increasingly competitive marketplace in New Zealand, making it hard to identify the best and most reputable option to suit your needs.

So, how do you appraise online casinos and identify the best option? Here are some criteria to keep in mind.


#1. A Casino’s License and Security Protocols

A Casino’s License and Security Protocols

In many ways, New Zealand players are fortunate, as they can access a large number of established international casino brands that are incredibly trustworthy and secure.

However, it’s still important to ensure that any casino you register with is fully licensed and regulated by the relevant authority.

In this case, an online casino will need to carry licensing from the NZ Gambling Commission, with this having been established as the region’s independent statutory body as part of the Gambling Act 2023.

In addition to being fully licensed, the casino platform itself should also be secured and encrypted. More specifically, it should have 128-bit SSL encryption as a minimum standard, with this commonplace among all financial sites that accept deposits and process online transactions.

This guarantees that your personal financial data and each individual transaction will be secured, minimising the risk of your information being breached or your funds stolen.

These are basic criteria when appraising online casinos and remote betting sites, and ticking these particular boxes will help to identify the safest and most secure casinos in New Zealand.


#2. A Casino’s Welcome Offer

In terms of value, we’d also recommend checking out a casino’s current welcome offer and how it intends to incentivise your custom.

There are various ways in which casinos structure their welcome offers, but the combination of a 100% and 200% deposit match up to a predetermined value with a finite number of free spins (usually on selected slots) is arguably the most widely used.

This will award players a certain amount of free gameplay and bonus funds based on the size of their deposit, while the free spins may also be awarded as a no-deposit bonus in some instances.

While appraising the cash value of your bonus is one thing, however, you’ll also have to calculate your wagering requirements in order to determine whether or not a particular welcome offer is right for you.

Wagering requirements stipulate how much cash you’ll have to play through to unlock any bonus winnings, while they’re usually expressed as a multiplier of the bonus funds added to your account.

For example, let’s say that you opt into a welcome offer that takes the form of a 100% deposit match up to $100, with a minimum deposit of $10 required and wagering requirements of 30x the bonus in play.

If you opt in at the $10 level, you’ll receive an additional $10 with which to play, while you’ll subsequently have to play through $300 before you can withdraw any associated winnings.

You’ll also have a finite period of time in which to meet these requirements, typically between seven and 30 days. So, you’ll have to consider these factors to determine whether a bonus is right for you, based on the size of your bankroll and how frequently you wager online.


#3. A Casino’s Games’ Library and Payment Methods

A Casino’s Games’ Library and Payment Methods

If you’re a casual gamer with a penchant for slots, you’ll want to pick a casino with a vast and diverse game’s library.

Remember, slots account for the vast majority of online casino games, so choosing an operator that has a large library of titles exposes you to a significant range of slots.

So long as both the desktop and mobile casino versions work well and the games have been developed using HTML5 technology, they should be widely available and load quickly on your chosen device (creating a more enjoyable gambling experience in the process).

We’d also recommend that you check out a casino’s available range of payment methods before making a financial commitment.

Most reputable brands offer a significant range in the digital age, with the number of NZ online casinos that accept PayPal and similar e-wallets like Skrill having increased markedly of late.

The advantage of these methods is that they enable you to connect your account to multiple bank and credit cards, enabling you to access numerous payment options flexibly and through a single, secure interface.

The key is to ensure that a casino offers access to one or two of your preferred payment options, while also checking that the operator doesn’t charge nominal fees when depositing or withdrawing funds.

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