No luck, fate or rituals allowed in gambling ads warns New Zealand legislation guidance

New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) comprehensive new guidance on gambling advertising for licensed online casino operators, including strict rules around not appealing to those under 18.

The guidance issued this week, accompanied the full Online Gambling Regulations 2026, released in June.

New Zealand is targetting a 2027 launch for licensed iGaming, with the regulator currently accepting EODs for online licenses from interested parties. Plans to liberalise iGaming were first announced in 2024.

According to the guidance advertisers must assess likely audience demographics and avoid any placement where minors could constitute more than 20% of possible viewers. 

Ads will be prohibited from being placed near schools, youth events, platforms popular with under-18 users, and many social media or livestream channels.

Formats that appeal to minors, such as cartoons, mascot and, youth culture music will all be prohibited from featuring in gambling marketing.

Advertising must not be targeted at people under 25 unless the operator can demonstrate robust age-verification and exclusion systems effective at blocking under-18 access. 

This was highlighted in the original Online Gambling Regulations, where it specified that customers must be verified for full name, date of birth and age (minimum 18 years) before account activation. 

Audience controls and restrictions

Operators must also disable automated audience expansion features that might broaden the reach to minors.

Operators must leverage existing audience controls. These include age and geographic targeting, placement exclusions, and disabling features like audience expansion. 

For advertisements embedded within software or live events, operators must ensure age restrictions are in place, such as age-gates or ticket controls, especially at events with industry involvement. 

An official wait period, will apply to live broadcasts, banning advertising from 30 minutes before to 30 minutes after these events.

Prohibition on certain content and practices

The new advertising rules also forbid content that could imply personal endorsements by individuals.

Advertisement content must not encourage excessive, impulsive, or continuous gambling. The regulator will assess an ad’s wording, imagery, audio, sequencing, and calls to action, to evaluate if it induces urgency or pressure. 

Claims made in adverts must be verifiable and adhere to New Zealand’s Fair Trading Act 1986.

Additional prohibitions include bans on showing images or videos of physical gaming machines and poker chips, and a specific bar on advertising slot game jackpots (though table game jackpots may still be promoted). 

Ads must also avoid references to luck, fate, rituals, or superstitions and must not suggest gambling as a necessary or life-enhancing activity.

Enhanced protections on use of customer data

Operators are explicitly barred from leveraging individual customer behaviour metrics to encourage higher-risk gambling. Targeting players with bets above their usual levels or promoting slot games to table game players is prohibited.

Direct communication channels such as email, text messages, or direct messages require clear, voluntary consent and must honour unsubscribe requests immediately. 

All advertising materials promoting bonuses, free spins or other inducements must highlight all material terms prominently. 

Inducements tied to new accounts can only be promoted on platforms licensed for online casino services or via compliant direct communications.

All advertising materials promoting bonuses, free spins or other inducements must highlight all material terms prominently. 

Native ads, paid editorial content, and social media posts require explicit advertising disclosures within the advertisement itself.