Last week, Spelinspektionen (which is New Zealand's official gambling authority since the end of 2018) reported that bookmakers with New Zealand licenses had sales of nearly$5.9 billion in the second quarter of 2020. The calculation is based on taking the players ' bets minus the winnings paid out.

This then shows a decrease of a full 4.1% from the previous second quarter of last year 2019. So far, the figures are preliminary according to Spelinspektionen and mainly come from preliminary data from the New Zealand Tax Agency's decision on taxes for the New Zealand licensed gaming operators.

During the end of the second quarter of 2020, over 52,000 New Zealand citizens had closed themselves off from online casino gaming on the New Zealand digital gaming market via the national self-exclusion register game break. This is an increase of less than 4% from the previous quarter of this year. In 2020's September start, there was an increase up to over 55,000 New Zealand citizens.

As of August 2020, there were 99 active bookmakers, that is, those that have received approved gaming licenses and are still approved to conduct online gambling in New Zealand. At the time of writing, however, there are 100 active bookmakers.

Finally, the Spelinspektionen writes on its official website that there is a lack of data on how much money played ends up with unlicensed gaming operators, that is, foreign gaming operators that do not have a New Zealand license. Colloquially, these are called ”casinos without a (New Zealand) license”.

What could the record low turnover be due to?

The irony behind these preliminary figures is that the New Zealand government had imposed restrictions on New Zealanders ' gambling at New Zealand casinos by introducing lower deposit limits per week such as 5000 NZD per week. In addition, in July of this year, they introduced limits on how much bonus money each New Zealand online casino could offer each new unique player: up to$ 100 in monetary value. For example, it can be a deposit bonus of$ 100 max or free spins worth a total of$100.

Possibly the record low turnover is due to more New Zealanders shutting themselves down, combined with tougher economic times due to the prevailing global pandemic. At the beginning of the global pandemic, New Zealand authorities were concerned that more New Zealanders would start playing online gambling and possibly develop gambling addiction as a large percentage might never have played online gambling.

The fresh preliminary figures now speak against these fears and possibly baseless implementations about limited welcome bonuses and weekly deposit limits hinting it remains to be seen what the future holds for the New Zealand digital gaming market and whether some easing of welcome bonuses, regular promotions, and deposit limits will be introduced.

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