About FHINZ: New Zealand's Independent Gambling Guide

Our mission

New Zealand's online gambling landscape is changing faster than at any point in the last two decades. Under the Gambling Act 2003 it remains illegal to operate an online casino from within New Zealand, yet the law has never penalised individual Kiwi players who choose to play at casinos licensed overseas. That grey zone left New Zealanders with a real problem: the sites they can legally use are almost all offshore, licensed in places like Curaçao, Anjouan, Malta or Tobique, and most international review sites are written for British or Australian audiences who face completely different rules, currencies and payment options.

FHINZ exists to close that gap. Our mission is simple — to give New Zealanders honest, plainly written, locally accurate information so they can decide where (and whether) to play, with their eyes open. We translate complicated licensing, tax and payment questions into answers that actually apply to someone banking in NZD, and we hold every operator we list to a standard we would be comfortable using ourselves.

Who we are

FHINZ is run by a small, New Zealand-based editorial team with backgrounds spanning iGaming, sports journalism, fintech and consumer advocacy. We are not owned by a casino, a bookmaker or a betting network, and no operator has any say over our rankings, our scores or our editorial calendar. Our writers live here, bank here, and follow New Zealand regulation as it evolves — including the new Online Casino Gambling Act, which received Royal assent in early 2026, brought in advertising restrictions for unlicensed operators from 1 May 2026, opens licence applications on 1 December 2026, and will see the first Department of Internal Affairs (DIA)-licensed online casinos go live in Q1 2027.

You can meet the people behind our reviews on our authors page, where each editor lists their background, the topics they cover and how to reach them. Every review, guide and comparison table on FHINZ is written or checked by a named member of that team — we don't publish anonymous, mass-produced content.

How we make money — our affiliate disclosure

We believe in being upfront about this, because you deserve to know it. FHINZ is a free-to-read site, and we fund our work through affiliate commissions. When you click through to an operator using one of our links and go on to register or deposit, we may earn a commission from that operator — at absolutely no extra cost to you. You never pay more, get a worse bonus, or receive different terms because you came through FHINZ.

Here is the part that matters most: commission never buys a ranking. An operator cannot pay us to appear higher in a table, receive a better score, or avoid criticism. If a site pays a generous commission but treats players poorly, delays withdrawals or buries unfair terms, it either scores badly or it doesn't make our lists at all. Where we recommend a product we don't earn from — such as the NZ-licensed TAB for sports betting — we say so. Every commercial link on the site carries a clear advertising disclosure, and affiliate links are marked with rel="nofollow sponsored" so search engines and readers alike know they are commercial.

Editorial independence

The single most valuable thing we own is our readers' trust, and we protect it with a firm wall between our commercial and editorial work. Rankings are decided by our editorial team using the scoring system set out in our review methodology — never by our commercial partnerships. Our team is free to downgrade, criticise or blocklist any operator, including ones we earn from, and they do. When an operator's terms change, when a payout complaint pattern emerges, or when the regulatory picture shifts, we update the affected pages and re-check our recommendations rather than leaving stale content online.

How we test operators

Plenty of comparison sites rank casinos from a spreadsheet. We don't. Before an operator earns a place on FHINZ, a member of our team goes through the full player journey with real New Zealand dollars:

• Real registration and verification. We open a genuine account and complete KYC, so we can tell you honestly how strict, fast or intrusive the ID checks are.
• Real NZD deposits. We fund the account using the methods Kiwis actually use in 2026 — NZD bank transfer, Visa/Mastercard, Paysafecard, e-wallets and cryptocurrency — and we note which ones fail. We are candid that POLi no longer works reliably at most NZ-facing casinos.
• Real play and bonus testing. We claim the welcome bonus and read the wagering requirements, max-cashout caps and game weightings in full, so we can tell you whether the headline offer is genuinely good value or mostly marketing.
• Real withdrawals. This is where sites are made or broken. We request a withdrawal and time exactly how long it takes for the money to reach a New Zealand bank account or crypto wallet — because a big bonus means nothing if you can't get paid.

Everything we learn feeds into the five weighted pillars described in our methodology, and we re-check listed operators on a regular cadence so the information stays current.

Our values

A note on responsible gambling

Gambling should be entertainment, not income. We are proud to run an affiliate site, but we take seriously the fact that gambling can cause real harm. That's why every page on FHINZ links to free, confidential New Zealand support — the Gambling Helpline NZ on 0800 654 655 (or text 8006), the Problem Gambling Foundation and Safer Gambling Aotearoa — and why we encourage every reader to set deposit limits, use time-outs and self-exclude when they need to. If gambling has stopped being fun, please read our responsible gambling guide.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections, or a bad experience with an operator you want us to investigate? We want to hear it. Email us at [email protected] or use our contact page. Reader tip-offs are one of the most valuable inputs into our blocklist.