On the second of July 2020, further so-called gambling liability measures were introduced by The New Zealand official gambling authority: the Gambling Inspectorate.

These three measures are as follows: only 100 NZD in welcome bonus for new New Zealand players at New Zealand licensed gaming operators, only allow a maximum of 5000 NZD in deposit limit and loss limit per week, and only be logged in for 12 hours per day at New Zealand gaming operators. The latter thus means gambling sites that have New Zealand active licenses.

Now it comes to light in a referral response from the New Zealand gambling authority that they propose that these strict gambling restrictions should be extended until the whole of 2021 instead of letting them expire until the end of 2020 as it was originally intended with them. You can read about the reason behind this suggestion in the next heading below.

To clarify the three different restrictions, this means that gambling sites can no longer attract new players as easily as the welcome bonus can amount to a maximum of 100 NZD, whether this is in the deposit bonus, odds bonus, live casino bonus, the total value of a number of free spins, or a risk-free game coupon.

The loss / deposit limit of NZD 5,000 per week cannot be used either. This means that it is not possible to put less in a week to be able to put more in a week. For example, it is not possible to only deposit NZD 3,000 a week to deposit NZD 7,000 next week to reach NZD 10,000 in 2 weeks.

The 12-hour login time applies to all New Zealand gambling sites combined. For example, it is possible to be logged in for 6 hours at one gaming site and 6 hours at another gaming site, which then makes a total of 12 hours for the day and thus the player is locked out until the next day.

The reason behind the proposal is primarily due to COVID-19

As you have probably already guessed, it is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that is behind the extension proposal from the gaming Inspectorate. The first wave that first swept across New Zealand this summer had not shown any increased cases of gambling addiction according to a report from New Zealand Gaming's own research on the subject.

Now that the second wave of COVID-19 cases is sweeping across New Zealand, there is concern that it will, however, lead to increased gambling addiction cases in the New Zealand population. Due to this concern, Spelinspektionen wants to extend the already introduced measures to minimize these risks from being realized.

Several gaming operators have already suffered from the aforementioned imposed gaming restrictions. For example, LeoVegas has lost 20% of its revenues in the Nordic region in the third quarter of this year. New Zealand-owned ATG's casino lost 58 million New Zealand $ onor in revenue during the same quarter of the same year.

The decision from Spelinspektionen comes from its current Director General Camilla Rosenberg who, together with participating general counsel Johan Röhr, and department heads Hanna Abrahamsson and Patrik Gustavsson, has signed this extension proposal for New Zealand's digital casino market.

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