Baseball betting in New Zealand: the cost behind the odds

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

Current as of 26 October 2026 · checked against the Racing Industry Act 2020 (section 74AAA) and TAB NZ’s published terms.

A New Zealand punter who wants to back a baseball game has fewer legal choices than a punter in almost any other market: TAB NZ, through its two online brands TAB and Betcha, is the only provider that may lawfully take sports and racing bets from someone in New Zealand since 28 June 2025. The phrase “baseball betting in New Zealand” names one operator group, not a competitive shortlist. The interesting question is what a price on a baseball game actually pays, how the bookmaker’s margin sits inside it, and what it costs to clear any promotion that comes attached.

The shortlist of New Zealand baseball betting operators

The baseball-betting market in New Zealand is not a market in the usual sense. There is one licensed operator group and a long list of offshore brands that advertise in the country. A punter comparing options is really comparing TAB NZ to itself across two apps, then deciding how much weight to give the offshore alternatives — a decision the law does not encourage, because the only frame that comes with a New Zealand complaints route is the one the Racing Industry Act 2020 designates.

TAB and Betcha are the same operator in two skins. The offshore list is reference material: a New Zealand punter who bets with any of them has no complaints route through the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), no recourse to the Gambling Commission, and no guarantee that an unspent balance comes back if the operator folds.

TAB

TAB is the larger of the two TAB NZ brands and the one most New Zealand punters already know. The app covers horse and harness racing, rugby union, rugby league and other sports including international baseball — pre-match and live — with the catalogue set by TAB NZ rather than by customer demand. The safer-gambling side of the account sits inside the app: deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion are all listed, and a self-exclusion cuts across both TAB NZ brands at once.

The cost question is where TAB comes out cleanly. There is no national TAB-promotion rule outside the operator’s own terms, so any “bonus bets” or boosted odds on baseball need to be read for the wagering requirement, the minimum odds rule and the deadline — three numbers that decide whether an offer is worth chasing at all. TAB NZ does not publish a published margin on baseball the way some sportsbooks publish an overround, so the price is the only signal a punter gets.

For a punter who wants a New Zealand-recognised account, a verified New Zealand address on file, and the ability to ring the helpline in the same country as the operator, TAB is the default. The trade-off is catalogue depth: baseball is one sport among many, and the most aggressive US-focused sportsbooks run deeper markets on a single MLB game than TAB does on a regular-season Tuesday.

Betcha

Betcha is the second online brand of TAB NZ and was first released on the New Zealand App Store in August 2024 under the publisher Entain New Zealand Limited. It runs the same racing and sports catalogue as TAB, on the same TAB NZ licence, with the same promotion terms and the same harm-minimisation tools. The two brands share a wallet in the sense that an exclusion or a deposit limit set on one applies to the other.

Where Betcha earns its place in the comparison is not depth but presentation: it is pitched as a simpler, mobile-first experience for casual punters who want to back a Yankees–Dodgers game without scrolling through harness racing. The economics are identical to TAB, because the catalogue and the licence are identical. A punter who finds the TAB app cluttered for baseball is the punter Betcha was built for.

The cost analysis does not change between the two brands. A boosted-odds offer on a baseball game carries the same turnover at TAB as it does at Betcha, because the same terms page writes both.

Spinbara

Spinbara is not licensed in New Zealand. The English-language site publishes a first-deposit sports offer of 100% up to EUR 100 and a separate sport crypto welcome of 100% up to 200 USDT, alongside a 100% casino welcome up to EUR 500 plus 200 free spins. The bonus numbers look generous in headline terms, and that is precisely why the cost question matters: a 100% match is a marketing figure, not a payout. What it costs the punter depends on the wagering factor, the minimum odds rule and the deadline — three numbers research does not carry for Spinbara, which is exactly why a New Zealand punter who wants a written answer finds it in the terms page, not on this one.

The bigger cost sits outside the offer. A New Zealand punter at Spinbara has no recourse to the Department of Internal Affairs, no right to enforce the New Zealand harm-minimisation framework, and no guarantee under the Gambling Act 2003. The DIA warns that overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins.

22Bet

22Bet is not licensed in New Zealand. The Curaçao licence 8048/JAZ (holder TechSolutions Group N.V.) gives the operator no right to take bets from someone in New Zealand under section 74AAA. Where 22Bet earns attention is market width: the sportsbook lists over 30 market types per event, including 1X2, Double Chance, totals, both teams to score, correct score and HT-FT — a level of granularity that goes well past what most generalist sportsbooks publish.

For a New Zealand punter shopping by market depth, that breadth cuts both ways. Wider markets mean tighter odds on popular lines (a marginal gain) and thin liquidity on niche ones (a real risk). Both are framed by the fact that 22Bet is offshore, the New Zealand complaints route does not reach it, and the offer terms still define what an unfulfilled bonus costs.

BetNinja

BetNinja is not licensed in New Zealand. The Union of the Comoros licence gives no right to take bets from someone in New Zealand. The site publishes a sports first-deposit match up to EUR 100, with a separate casino welcome. Whether baseball appears in the BetNinja sportsbook depends on the day’s schedule; what any welcome costs depends on the operator’s own turnover and minimum-odds rules.

The cost side of the BetNinja equation is the same shape as the others: a bonus number is the visible cost, the wagering requirement is the real one, and the offshore status means the gambling-harm framework that applies to TAB NZ does not apply here.

Winz.io

Winz.io is not licensed in New Zealand. The site runs two licences (Anjouan and Tobique), both held by Novatrix SRL, and neither reaches a person in New Zealand under section 74AAA. The sportsbook operates alongside its own Sports Rules and Bonus Terms pages — separate documents, written separately, with the offer terms not necessarily matching the betting rules.

A New Zealand punter who finds Winz.io’s sportsbook must read those two pages together before the first deposit. The cost of an offer lives in the page that says what the bonus has to do before it pays out. The cost of being outside the New Zealand regime lives in the absence of any New Zealand harm-minimisation framework or complaints route.

Golden Panda

Golden Panda is not licensed in New Zealand. The brand names no licence that applies to a person in New Zealand, and the site’s catalogue lists sports, esports, virtual sports and prediction markets behind one account. Whether baseball is on the schedule on any given day is a function of Golden Panda’s own roster.

The cost framing here is the consolidation play. One account, several verticals, several bonuses — a structure that looks cheaper than it usually is, because cross-vertical wagering rules can attach a casino bonus clearing cost to a sports bet. A New Zealand punter who plays casino and sport on the same book recognises the shape immediately.

Telbet

Telbet is not licensed in New Zealand. The site self-describes as a crypto casino and sportsbook, with a welcome offer in BTC plus free spins and a small USDT free-bet promotion on the Russian version. The English-language version’s baseball coverage is not established in research and is not guaranteed.

Cost-wise, the same rule applies as on the other offshore brands: a “free bet” is rarely a free-bet payout if the stake is not returned with winnings, and a “200% bonus” is a wagering amount, not a payout. The Telbet value calculation turns on whether the Russian terms or the English terms govern — a question only the operator’s T&Cs settle.

BigClash

BigClash is not licensed in New Zealand. The Curaçao licence 8048/JAZ gives no right to take bets from someone in New Zealand. The site publishes pre-match and live sports, esports and virtual sports under one account; baseball appears when the schedule carries it.

The BigClash calculation is unchanged from any other offshore sportsbook on this list: a price is a price, an offer is an offer, and the absence of the New Zealand complaint route is the same absence as on any of the other eight.

BillyBets

BillyBets is not licensed in New Zealand. The brand names no New Zealand-recognised licence. The site runs casino and sportsbook under one account, with baseball listed among a dozen sports alongside football, tennis, table tennis, basketball, ice hockey, American football, combat sports, esports and virtual sports. Baseball is part of the published catalogue rather than a special-case coverage.

The BillyBets cost equation for a New Zealand punter is the wider one: the betting catalogue is honest, the offer terms have to be read, and the New Zealand harm-minimisation framework does not extend to the brand. No settled punter in New Zealand who wants harm-minimisation tools under their own country’s regulator needs an offshore book.

What baseball betting in New Zealand actually means

Baseball as a betting subject is bigger in the United States than anywhere else, which shapes what shows up on a New Zealand punter’s screen. Major League Baseball (MLB) is the centre of the calendar: 30 teams, 29 in the United States and one (the Toronto Blue Jays) in Canada, split evenly between the National League and the American League, with 162 regular-season games per team. The postseason sends six teams from each league into a four-round October tournament, ending with the best-of-seven World Series between the two league champions. The most recent edition — the 2025 World Series — was won by the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3 over the Toronto Blue Jays, clinched on 1 November 2025 with a 5-4 win in 11 innings in Game 7, Yoshinobu Yamamoto named MVP.

For a New Zealand punter, the time zone is the working constraint. MLB games run in the US evening, which is the small hours of the following New Zealand morning, so the live-betting window for a Yankees–Astros game is roughly the time a TAB NZ punter is asleep. Same-game multis and pre-match betting fill the gap that the clock opens, and that gap is part of why TAB NZ’s baseball line tends to read shallow next to a US-focused book.

The sport itself runs nine innings per game, three outs per half-inning, with extra innings until there is a winner. Three strikes make a strikeout; four balls make a walk; each team fields nine players. None of that is exotic to a casual viewer, but each line on the betting slip rests on it. A “first to score” market reads very differently once you know the home side bats last and rarely leads after the first half-inning. A “total runs” line is settled across nine innings with extras, which is why an MLB total sits comfortably higher than a same-day NRL line.

At the international level, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) governs the sport; that matters at Olympic and World Cup level, and it means a New Zealand punter looking past MLB has a secondary calendar to follow. The New York Yankees’ 27 World Series titles remain the most by any franchise — a figure that anchors the historical side of any season preview and survives the Dodgers’ recent run.

The law that lets you place the bet

The law that makes TAB NZ the only lawful option for sports and racing bets in New Zealand is short and recent. Section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020, inserted by the Racing Industry Amendment Act 2025 and in force since 28 June 2025, says no person other than TAB NZ may offer racing betting, sports betting or other racing or sports betting to a person in New Zealand, regardless of where that person is resident or incorporated. The Department of Internal Affairs told unlicensed providers serving New Zealand to withdraw with immediate effect. There is no licence to apply for and no licence register for bookmakers, because there is only one lawful provider.

TAB NZ’s partner Entain runs the betting business under a 25-year agreement signed in 2023: a 50/50 share of gross profits, with at least $150 million a year going to TAB NZ for the first five years, and a one-off $100 million payment from Entain to the racing sector. That commercial shape — a state-aligned monopoly operated by an international partner — is what a New Zealand punter is buying into. Betcha is the second TAB NZ brand, released in August 2024 under the same licence and run on the same accounting; an exclusion set on TAB also cuts the Betcha account, and the same wallet sits underneath both.

For the offshore brands, the law targets the operator. Section 19(4) of the Gambling Act 2003 (inserted in 2025) says an individual may not be convicted for placing a bet with an offshore betting operator in breach of section 74AAA; no source states a penalty for a player. The DIA’s stated warning is the consumer-facing side: overseas operators may be in jurisdictions with minimal consumer safeguards, may not return unspent credits and may not pay out large wins. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 does not change this picture — it licenses online casino gambling only and does not extend the betting monopoly. The point-of-consumption charge on offshore racing and sports bets ceased on 30 June 2026, which is a tax-side change and not a legalisation.

Betting under 18 is an offence under section 89 of the Racing Industry Act 2020; TAB NZ enforces the 18+ rule through account verification with a New Zealand address on file. Land-based casinos use 20 as the age — never collapse the two. No statutory per-bet cap exists; any limit is TAB NZ’s own terms. No payment-blocking order or bank obligation was found; whether a deposit via crypto or a connection via VPN is permitted is operator-level, not law-level. Greyhound racing is closing in stages from 1 August 2026, and from that date offshore operators may not take bets on greyhound races either.

The safeguards built into a TAB NZ account

The harm-minimisation framework attached to a TAB NZ account is the practical answer to “what does being inside the monopoly buy you”. The TAB NZ app lists deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion as in-app tools — not marketing footnotes. Each of those is a real lever a punter can pull without ringing a call centre, and an exclusion cuts across the TAB and Betcha brands at once because the licence is shared.

The help lines outside the app are New Zealand numbers: the free Gambling Helpline at 0800 654 655, with a text line at 8006, and Safer Gambling Aotearoa as the umbrella body. TAB NZ funds that framework in part through the Problem Gambling Levy of 0.74% (in force from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028). None of that is unique to TAB NZ in theory — every regulated sportsbook runs similar tools — but it is unique in practice in New Zealand, because every other sportsbook offering bets to a person here is doing so unlawfully under section 74AAA.

The offshore brands run their own responsible-gambling tools. The DIA’s position is that those tools are framed by an overseas regime with minimal consumer safeguards, may not be available in a New Zealand time zone, and sit outside any New Zealand complaints route. That is the other side of the choice, and it is the side the marketing of those brands tends to leave out.

What a smart baseball betting strategy looks like

Searchers asking about baseball betting strategy usually want one of two things: a system that wins, or a way to manage the bankroll. The honest answer is that no published system beats the bookmaker’s margin across a season, because the margin is built into every price and a long enough run of bets pays the operator’s take regardless of picks. What a strategy can do is reduce the cost of the run: keep the unit small relative to the bankroll, bet on the markets with the thinnest overround, and stop betting when the day has cost more than the budget allows.

A bankroll framework that survives contact with the calendar is the unit-percentage model — bet a fixed percentage (1% to 5% is the typical band) of the bankroll on each selection, scaling the stake down as the bankroll shrinks and up as it grows. The unit-percentage approach matters more in baseball than in most sports because the schedule is long (162 games per team in the regular season), the public-betting favourite loses more often than it wins (a long-known stat going back decades), and the temptation to chase with a losing streak is built into the season’s shape.

A strategy that leans on totals has a real edge where research supports it. In MLB, pitching match-ups drive totals more than offence does: a low-overround total line takes account of the probables, and the line will tighten or loosen as the line-up cards confirm. Public betting on the over is well documented to push the line a half-run past where it sits, which means under bets at full price are the rare thing — a value spot when the line moves back. None of that “tips” a winner for any one game. It changes the shape of the season-long bet, which is the only thing a strategy actually does.

A strategy that leans on the run line is the baseball-specific version of a handicap. The run line is a 1.5-run spread, with the favourite giving 1.5 runs and the underdog getting 1.5. The favourite at -1.5 runs pays more than the moneyline, the underdog at +1.5 pays less, and the market exists because the favourite wins by two or more roughly 40% of the time — a real number that justifies the line’s existence. A punt that picks favourites at -1.5 runs is betting against public money more than picking winners, and it works when the public is overweight the chalk.

Predictions, picks and “the baseball bet of the day” all ask the reader to place the same bet, for the same reason, on the same day. None of them can see the future, and any tipster who claims a real win rate after the bookmaker’s margin is running at the published number is selling a story. Thea’s value for the reader is knowing what a price pays back, what the margin of a market typically runs at, and what a stake limit at the operator cuts a long-term strategy down to — not what a model says about tonight’s pitching match-up.

The bet types and odds that show up on a baseball line

A baseball betting line is a stack of markets rather than a single number, and each market has its own price and its own margin. The moneyline is the head-to-head — who wins the game. The run line is the spread at 1.5 runs. The total (or over/under) is the combined runs line. Same-game multis (SGMs) let a punter string markets from one game into a single ticket with multiplied odds. Live betting reopens each of those markets at different prices as the game unfolds.

Moneyline

The moneyline is the simplest baseball market. Back the Yankees to beat the Dodgers, and the price is the quoted decimal odds. The home side wins roughly 54% of MLB regular-season games — a number that explains why home-field odds are typically shorter than road odds, and why the bookmaker can run a margin and still make money across a season. The margin on a baseball moneyline is typically tighter than on a totals market and wider than on a 1X2 soccer line, in the order of the small single digits.

A winning 10-unit bet at 1.90 returns 19 units (stake 10, profit 9) before any promotion. That is the “what does the bet pay” arithmetic, and it is what most punters actually want from the moneyline. Punters chasing a 2.00 line can usually find one on a heavy underdog, but the implied probability is 50% and the real probability is closer to the published number, which is why 2.00 on a longshot is rarely the bargain it looks.

Run line

The run line is baseball’s handicap — almost always set at 1.5 runs, with the favourite giving runs and the underdog receiving them. A favourite at -1.5 runs is the typical line, and the price is significantly higher than the moneyline because the favourite has to win by two or more. The favourite has historically won by two or more runs in roughly 40% of MLB regular-season games over a long sample — the figure that justifies the price.

The run line is where a sharp MLB bettor shops for value. A heavy public favourite on the moneyline often shows -1.5 at close to -110, which in decimal odds is around 1.91. A same-game multi that puts a run line on the chalk side next to the totals over is the textbook public bet, and the textbook public bet is the one the margin is widest on.

Totals (over/under)

Totals in baseball are the combined runs across nine innings (with extras counting). The line at major sportsbooks tends to settle between 7.5 and 9.5 for an MLB regular-season game, with the price for either side at 1.91 decimal in a competitive market. A total of 8.5 with both sides at 1.91 implies a 52.4% chance of the over and a 52.4% chance of the under; the totals market is typically priced more tightly than the 1X2 on soccer and wider than the moneyline on a head-to-head baseball game.

Public money tends to push totals to the over because offence sells, but pitching match-ups are where totals actually live. A 9.5 line on a game with two top-of-rotation starters can sit at 1.91 each way because the line was set before the probables were posted; a 8.5 line on a game where both teams are rested bullpens is over-priced at the same odds. Both directions are forms of inefficiency, and both directions close once the line has set in. A punter looking at totals has a real window in the last hour before first pitch.

Same-game multi (SGM)

Same-game multis are the modern baseball bet. The punter picks two or more markets from the same game — a Yankees moneyline combined with Aaron Judge to hit a home run, or a Dodgers run line combined with the total going over — and the book multiplies the odds into a single price. A 1.50 leg and a 1.50 leg combine to a 2.25 SGM; a 1.80 leg and a 1.70 leg combine to 3.06.

The catch is correlation. A 1.50 leg and a 1.50 leg independently priced are not a 2.25 bet when they are correlated — the book knows Judge is more likely to hit a home run if the Yankees are winning late, and the SGM price accounts for that. A punter building SGMs by multiplying legs manually ends up “pricing in” the correlation twice and losing the bet to the margin. SGMs are best treated as a published product: take the price the operator offers, don’t build your own.

Live baseball betting

Live betting on baseball is offered by TAB NZ and by every offshore sportsbook on the list, with prices updated every pitch in the bigger events. A TAB NZ punter looking at a Yankees–Astros game live sees moneyline, run line and totals re-priced at intervals, with the run line shrinking to 0.5 in late innings and the totals adjusted to the score. The market is the most volatile in baseball: a one-out grand slam in the third inning moves every line on the game by a full run.

The cost of live baseball is the same cost as pre-match baseball, with one addition: time pressure. A live bet has a smaller window in which to read the price, the margin is typically wider than the pre-match price, and the temptation to chase a shifting line is built into the format. The sharp side is to live-bet with the unit size reduced — half a unit, in many published staking plans — and to treat the live offer as a published product rather than a market to out-trade.

How the sports and tournaments calendar lines up

Baseball’s calendar is shorter than soccer’s and longer than the NFL’s, but it sits awkwardly for a New Zealand punter because the games run in the US evening. The MLB regular season runs from late March or early April through September, with 162 games per team spread across the six-month schedule. The MLB postseason runs through October, with the Wild Card, Division Series, Championship Series and World Series culminating in late October or early November.

A New Zealand punter who follows the calendar sees the same five-month drop in scheduling that the season itself runs — the calendar opens around late March and closes with the World Series in late October or early November. The 2025 World Series, won by the Dodgers over the Blue Jays in seven games, closed on 1 November 2025 — the latest calendar date of any recent World Series, which makes the 2026 calendar effectively clear of any 2025 leftovers.

The international calendar sits underneath MLB. The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) runs the Baseball World Cup, the Premier12, the Olympic qualifying tournament and the women’s Baseball World Cup; the Caribbean Series runs in February; the Asia Professional Baseball Championship runs in November. None of those is the daily baseball bet for a TAB NZ punter, but each arrives with enough games to make a multi-leg SGM useful, and each arrives with a margin the book is less tight on than the MLB main lines.

The college calendar in the NCAA Division I baseball tournament is bigger than it gets credit for in international coverage. The College World Series, held in Omaha, Nebraska, runs in June, and the betting line at US sportsbooks is wide enough to support same-game multis on pitching-heavy match-ups. For a TAB NZ punter, the NCAA schedule is also in the same time zone problem that the MLB has, with night games and weekend afternoon games bleeding into the New Zealand morning. None of these calendars changes the offer on a TAB NZ account — the catalogue is set by the operator — but each gives a punter a sense of what their MLB off-season line is for.

Reading the margin on a baseball market

The bookmaker’s margin is the cut the operator keeps on every market, expressed as a percentage of the stake. It is built into the decimal odds and never printed as a line item, which is why a punter who reads only the price is paying the margin without seeing it. The way the margin is read is through the relationship between the odds and the implied probabilities of all outcomes.

Take a two-way market at decimal odds 1.90 / 1.90 — the example this page uses because it is what a competitive baseball pre-match price typically looks like. The implied probability of each side is the reciprocal of the odds: 1 ÷ 1.90 = 0.5263, or about 52.63% per side. The two probabilities add to 1.0527, or 105.27%. The payout share is the reciprocal of that sum — 1 ÷ 1.0527 = about 0.95 — and the margin is 1 minus the payout share, which works out to roughly 5%. That 5% is what the operator keeps on every unit bet on this market; the punter’s expected return per unit, before any bonus, is about 95 cents in a long enough sample.

That 5% is a band, not a single figure. Real baseball markets price closer to 3% on moneylines in the busiest events and wider than 8% on niche markets and long-shot totals. The 1.90 / 1.90 example sits in the middle of that band, and the value to the reader is in seeing that middle, not in pretending one decimal place is settled mathematics. A punter who finds a market at 1.95 / 1.95 is looking at a margin of about 2.5%; a punter who finds a market at 1.83 / 1.83 is looking at a margin of about 9%. The narrower the margin, the closer the price is to “fair”, and the more room a strategy has to pay back its staking cost.

The arithmetic runs the same way for a three-way market, with the payouts on draw added to the reciprocal calculation. A 1X2 baseball market — home, draw, away — at 1.70 / 4.00 / 4.50 has implied probabilities of about 58.8% + 25% + 22.2% = 106%, which means an overround of roughly 6% (and a margin of 5.7%). Baseball rarely prices as a 1X2 because ties happen in some innings scenarios but not in the final score, which is why the standard market is the moneyline and the run line rather than a three-way.

What the margin means for the punter is the clearest framing of the cost question this page is built around. On a market with a 5% margin, the punter loses, on average across many bets, five cents of every dollar wagered before counting the stake. That is the cost of the bet — separate from the offer cost, separate from the tax, separate from the strategy. It is the price of admission, and it sits inside every price on every market on every book.

Frequently asked questions

How does baseball betting work?

A baseball bet is a stake on an outcome priced in decimal odds, with the winnings paid as stake multiplied by the odds. The main markets are the moneyline (who wins the game), the run line (handicap at 1.5 runs), the totals (over/under on combined runs), and same-game multis that combine markets from one game. Live betting re-opens each of those at changing prices as the game moves.

How do you place a baseball bet in New Zealand?

Place a baseball bet by signing into a TAB NZ account — either the TAB app or Betcha, the two online brands of TAB NZ — choosing the event, picking a market, entering a stake, and confirming the bet slip. Offshore sportsbooks accept New Zealand sign-ups in practice, but the Department of Internal Affairs treats this as a breach of section 74AAA by the operator, with no New Zealand complaints route available if a payout stalls.

How are baseball games priced for betting?

Baseball games are priced in decimal odds that imply a probability of each outcome, with the margin built into the odds so that all implied probabilities add up to more than 100%. A two-way market at 1.90 / 1.90 implies 52.63% on each side and totals 105.27% — the gap is the margin, which is what the bookmaker keeps on every unit bet on that market. The narrower the gap, the closer the price is to fair value.

Which bookmaker may lawfully take sports and racing bets in New Zealand?

TAB NZ, through its two online brands TAB and Betcha, is the only provider that may lawfully take sports and racing bets from a person in New Zealand since 28 June 2025, under section 74AAA of the Racing Industry Act 2020. There is no licence to apply for and no licence register for bookmakers because the law designates TAB NZ as the sole provider; the Department of Internal Affairs told unlicensed operators serving New Zealand to withdraw with immediate effect.

How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?

The return on a winning bet is the stake multiplied by the decimal odds — a $10 bet at 1.90 returns $19 (stake $10, profit $9). A combination bet’s price is the multiplication of the leg odds into one ticket, so a 1.50 leg and a 1.70 leg combine to a 2.55 multi. The stake is included in the returned amount on a winning cash bet but is usually not returned on a free bet whose stake is paid out only as winnings.

Created by the ”Nztennisodds” editorial team.