Betfair to stop offering racing and sports markets in New Zealand

[Murray Fish]

 

New Zealand punters will no longer be able to bet on racing and sports through Betfair from July 23.

The legislative net which prohibits overseas-based operators taking bets from Kiwi punters came into force this month, enshrining a monopoly for Entain’s TAB NZ and betcha brands.

Betfair, which holds a licence in Australia. advised New Zealand customers this week that it will cease offering markets on racing and sports events, but other markets, including political markets, will still be available.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the Upcoming Change and poorer user experience,” it said in statement. “Unfortunately, Betfair has to make the Upcoming Change to comply with the Legislative Amendment.”

New Zealand is also looking to regulate its online casino market and this week the Online Casino Gambling Bill was introduced to parliament.

“The Online Casino Gambling Bill will introduce a regulatory system for online gambling in New Zealand, which will prioritise harm minimisation, consumer protection, and tax collection,” Minister of Internal Affairs, Brooke van Velden, said.

Fines of $5 million may be imposed on unregulated operators which target Kiwi customers.

[mikeynz]

Me thinks I'm going to stop betting on sports completely, as for racing, good question.

[Chief Stipe]

10 minutes ago, mikeynz said:

Me thinks I'm going to stop betting on sports completely, as for racing, good question.

Are you worried about the prices offered or the lack of options?

Is there anything in the legislation to stop ENTAIN managing their pools as their own global pool?

[mikeynz]

28 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Are you worried about the prices offered or the lack of options?

Is there anything in the legislation to stop ENTAIN managing their pools as their own global pool?

Betting live on sports, the platform is hard to navigate, bet365 was brilliant layout, I used that for live scores, but bet on TAB, the options they have are fine, since 365s gone so hard to stay informed.

As for Racing, the jury's out.

[Chief Stipe]

39 minutes ago, mikeynz said:

Betting live on sports, the platform is hard to navigate, bet365 was brilliant layout, I used that for live scores, but bet on TAB, the options they have are fine, since 365s gone so hard to stay informed.

As for Racing, the jury's out.

You don't use Betcha?

[mikeynz]

43 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

You don't use Betcha?

No but from the sporting live perspective any time night or day you could find some sport happening, from a football match in Brazil to the MLB or NBA, if you've been over to 365s platform you know what I mean, as regards to live play, I'm not bagging TABs betting options, but 365 sent notifications if a goal or corner or a homer was scored in some ways losing that for sport is probably a parallel to what trackside radio was for racing, it just gets less accessible, so you dont go there as much,some will disagree some not.

At present sports nation is I believe only available in Southland now online, and the usual critics are out, bad internet or can't get cricket on radio in car, itz part of summer things like that I think people underestimate the value of some things only when they are gone.

At this point I'm not interested in Betcha, same company running 2 places, can't be much different.

[Chief Stipe]

7 minutes ago, mikeynz said:

At this point I'm not interested in Betcha, same company running 2 places, can't be much different.

Hugely different.  Runs on ENTAINS main platform that they use for other countries.  Deposit a small amount of cash and take the bonuses and then complain.

[mikeynz]

9 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Hugely different.  Runs on ENTAINS main platform that they use for other countries.  Deposit a small amount of cash and take the bonuses and then complain.

Will check it out😐

[the galah]

tabcorp had already stopped nz people accessing their account from nz since the beginning of this month.

betfair i always thought  dodgy as regards their in play betting on horse racing.

for example there is an 11 second delay if you look at the sky tv coverage start time and compare it with the tab website. i often wondered whether there is actually a couple of second more delay with betfair.

i once had an account on betfair and i learnt not to bet on in play australian racing because of the dalay.For example 90% of the time you could nearly always see who had won by looking at the betfair prices ,even though your tv screen showed  the races still had 200m to go and they were all bunched up and you could still get a bet on (but only on horses who never won).

actually if you did bet on something that turned out to be the winner in the last 400m,you never got it on as its odds would slash to below whatwas showing as available to bet on,you would drop the price you were willing to accept,again if it was to be a winner,someone somewhere else had taken what was available before you.I'm sure somewhere someone had an inside advantage,whteher it be the delay or the algorythms.

I think nz punters betting on  in play on australian racing was for losers.

Actually i had intended to try out using the delay as an advantage and go sit at the races and bet here. But they closed my account before i got the chance. They gave no reason and i had made a small profit overall,but i  had one bad night and that may have been a factor.i was just trying out a system i had and i had still made on overall profit though so that annoyed me as they simply just closed the account,refused to respond to requests as to why they had done that and when i rung them up the bloke actually said,oh we're doing that a lot to our nz customers at the moment,but he wasn't sure why.

betfair,like tabcorp wered paying the  nz codes for use of their product betfair obviously less,but i wonder whether any increased turnover redirected bu nz punters into nz pools will create much of a win for racing. sport i would imagine it will.

Like,i'm sure a lot of the people betting on nz racing on  betfair were new zealanders and they aren't going to invest much with our tab are they?

i really only followed nz harness on betfair and found the odds were nearly always unders for everything.

as to tabcorp,if you  take out the nz people that were betting into their pools on the nz product,then that may well leave their pools so low they discourage australain punters to bet on a lot of the races.

thats why i thought the likes of nz harness racing may gain next to nothing,even possibly lose with the new legislation.in other words the funding they lose from all the aussie bookies could be greater than what they will get from the nz punters whose only choice now is the nz tab.

t will be sports is where the nz tab will gain.

Edited yesterday at 06:13 AM by the galah

[Newmarket]

On 8/07/2025 at 4:26 PM, Chief Stipe said:

You don't use Betcha?

I dont think you do much sports betting…. Betcha is exactly the same as TAB, except different promos. 
They both suspend betting so often and for so long…. That’s not what you want with live betting….

[Chief Stipe]

4 minutes ago, Newmarket said:

I dont think you do much sports betting…. Betcha is exactly the same as TAB, except different promos. 
They both suspend betting so often and for so long…. That’s not what you want with live betting….

So which agency is the exemplar?

[Newmarket]

On 8/07/2025 at 5:34 PM, Chief Stipe said:

Hugely different.  Runs on ENTAINS main platform that they use for other countries.  Deposit a small amount of cash and take the bonuses and then complain.

Myself and and a few mates have opened Betcha from start…. slowly the promotions are getting less….unless your into boxing. 
 

What are the differences? 
Odds, majority bet types, App, deposit, withdrawal all the same. 
 

Betcha- Offer boxing promos and sport mainly, I do get 2nd & 3rd back first 6 races on the 2 harness meetings on a Friday which I like, then usually same on a few meetings Sat. Can take less than 5% units on exotic bets , although at fixed odds it’s a gamble that they pay more than TAB, although I have had good collects when Quaddie pools are small at TAB and fixed odds over on Betcha. Also get bet returns and SGM 1 leg loses offers, good thing about this is you can use on any sport / racing. Offers on dogs too. No tote betting, Fixed or SP
 

TAB- Promos have basically stopped for me, except the first 2 races 2nd,3rd promotions. They offer SGM all ups but that’s about it, same old boring shit compared to Sportsbet. 
Their Odds Surge pops up, but really their odds are usually so poor early on that it’s hard to find any overs, majority of time odds better close to jump. Also hop onto the BGP site to see what boys have labelled, the sheep on there punt on it regardless of chance…. TAB reacts quickly so usually getting unders. For the record, not had a bet with TAB for several weeks… don’t intend to

 

 

[Newmarket]

20 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

So which agency is the exemplar?

Anyone serious about live betting would have a Betfair account. Better odds, low takeouts, and for main markets the pools are huge, but best of all the never get suspended. 
 

Sportsbet had live options but you had to ring to place bets, which was a hassle and I never did. So at least NZ has live betting, just getting suspended is the problem

[Chief Stipe]

2 hours ago, Newmarket said:

Anyone serious about live betting would have a Betfair account. Better odds, low takeouts, and for main markets the pools are huge, but best of all the never get suspended. 

But isn't Betfair just an exchange?

[mikeynz]

3 hours ago, Newmarket said:

Anyone serious about live betting would have a Betfair account. Better odds, low takeouts, and for main markets the pools are huge, but best of all the never get suspended. 
 

Sportsbet had live options but you had to ring to place bets, which was a hassle and I never did. So at least NZ has live betting, just getting suspended is the problem

True about Betfair, it was a bit micky mouse in some ways but a serious punter could request odds wait to get matched and a cashout offer, a fair one was always on screen, the issue is live info which was on 365 is gone, I used to get notifications when points were scored in rugby or league, goals and corners in soccer, home runs or runs in baseball,etc etc no sight does that now, have no issue with what TAB offer in live sport as such but it's almost like we've regressed back to the 70s 80s or 90s, if you push everything off the web from accessing then many don't know thd difference after time so new punters don't know, maybe the new punters will take up the slack from the ones they lose.

As for racing I'm easy o about what the TAB offer, whether or not the patronage increases remains to be seen, I just have doubts spending will increase, for me I will still have a burst now and then, for Sport probably a lot less if at all, I'm not alone on that from what I'm hearing or reading.

Edited 2 hours ago by mikeynz