Responsible Gambling — Tools, Limits, and Help for Kiwis

Know the signs

Most gambling harm builds slowly. Someone does not wake up one Tuesday with a problem; the signal-to-noise ratio just shifts over months until the day-to-day starts to bend around the play. The signs below are not a diagnosis — they are the patterns we see most often in the players, partners and family members who reach out for help.

• Chasing losses. Going back the next day, or the next session, specifically to try to win back what you lost. Each session is decided by the last one rather than by what you came to play for.
• Hidden play. Not telling your partner how long you played for, deleting the browser history after a session, lying about a deposit amount or about whether you played at all.
• Borrowing to gamble. Using a credit card, an overdraft, an after-pay scheme, a loan from a friend or family member to fund a deposit. Any deposit you cannot pay for cash today is a borrowed deposit.
• Gambling to manage emotions. Opening the app because the day was hard, because you are anxious, because you are bored, because you are lonely. Pokies are designed to provide a reliable emotional anaesthetic; that is part of why they work.
• Time creep. Sessions getting longer than you planned. Play eating into work hours, school pick-up, meals, sleep, time with your kids or partner.
• Restlessness when not playing. Feeling irritable, twitchy or low when you cannot play, and noticing the feeling lift the moment you can.

None of these signs on its own is conclusive. Two or three of them together, sustained over a few months, is the pattern worth taking seriously. If any of this sounds like you or someone you live with, the self-assessment below is a useful next step.

Self-assessment

Two well-validated screening tools are used internationally to measure gambling harm: the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), a nine-item questionnaire developed by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use, and the Brief Biosocial Gambling Screen (BBGS), a three-question tool published by Harvard Medical School's Division on Addictions. Both are used in clinical settings and both have been independently validated for community use. The four plain-language questions below are adapted from the PGSI.

1. In the last year, have you bet more than you could really afford to lose?
2. Have you needed to gamble with larger amounts to get the same excitement?
3. Have you gone back another day to try to win back losses?
4. Has gambling caused financial problems for you or your household?

If you answered yes to any one of these, it is worth a free, confidential conversation with a counsellor. That does not mean you have a problem; it means a ten-minute call could give you a clearer picture than another month of wondering. Call 0800 654 655 — no commitment, no follow-up unless you ask for one.

Tools every casino we recommend offers

The six tools below are the standard responsible-gambling controls at every operator we cover. You should be able to find all of them by logging in and navigating to Settings → Responsible Gambling (or Account → Limits at some sites). If a casino we recommend is missing any of these, please tell us — we will reassess our ranking.

• Deposit limits (daily, weekly, monthly). The single most effective tool in the kit. Set one before you fund the account for the first time and you remove the most common bankroll-management failure mode — the impulse top-up after a losing session.
• Loss limits. Cap your net losses over a chosen period regardless of how you deposit. Useful if you cycle deposits and withdrawals frequently, where a deposit limit alone can be sidestepped.
• Session and wager limits. Turnover-based caps — total amount wagered per session or per day. Helpful for high-spin-count players where the deposit number understates the exposure.
• Reality checks. Pop-up reminders at intervals (every 30, 60 or 90 minutes) showing how long you have played and how much you are up or down. You cannot dismiss them with a single click; you have to actively continue.
• Time-outs. A short cooling-off period — usually 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days. The account is locked, deposits are refused, marketing emails are paused. Useful when you want to stop but are not ready to commit to a long exclusion.
• Self-exclusion. A long-term ban from the operator, typically six months to five years or permanent. Once enabled, the operator is contractually required to refuse you for the full duration, and a reputable operator will reject account-recreation attempts at KYC.

How limits change. Reductions take effect immediately the moment you confirm them. Raising a limit incurs a mandatory cooling-off period — 24 to 48 hours at any reputable operator — and the increase only activates after that window passes. If a casino lets you raise a limit instantly mid-session, that is a red flag and we will not rank it.

If you need to stop completely

If self-exclusion at a single operator is not enough — because you have accounts at several casinos, or because you know the urge will route around any one block — the realistic picture for Kiwi players is that you have to build the wall in three layers.

The first layer is a bank-level gambling block (see the next section). This is the most powerful single tool available to NZ players and the only one that sits outside the casino's reach. The second layer is self-exclusion at every operator you have ever held an account with — list them, log into each, set the longest available exclusion. The third layer is counselling support, ideally face-to-face through the Problem Gambling Foundation or Salvation Army Oasis, both of which are free across New Zealand. Unlike the UK's GamStop, New Zealand has no central self-exclusion register that covers offshore sites; the layered approach is how Kiwis get to the same level of protection.

NZ helplines and counselling

Every service below is free to use. Most are available 24/7. None will report your call to anyone.

Bank-level gambling blocks

This is the most underused tool in New Zealand and, for many people, the most effective. ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac all offer card-level merchant-category blocks that decline gambling transactions outright at the card network — before the casino even sees the deposit attempt. Because the block lives at your bank, it sits completely outside the casino's reach. Even if you change your mind mid-session and try to deposit, the transaction will simply fail. Most banks also impose a 48-hour cooling-off before a block can be removed, which is exactly the friction you want at the moment of relapse.

How to enable a block at each major NZ bank:

• ANZ — goMoney app → Cards → Block categories → enable Gambling.
• ASB — ASB app → Settings → Card preferences → toggle Gambling block.
• BNZ — Internet banking → Card management → Block gambling.
• Westpac — Westpac One app → Cards → Card controls → toggle Gambling.

Kiwibank, Heartland and the credit unions vary — call your bank's contact centre and ask for a gambling-merchant-category block on your debit card. If they cannot do it, ask for a card replacement with the block applied to the new card. Every bank has a process; they may not advertise it.

Supporting someone you love

If you are reading this because someone you live with or care about is gambling in a way that worries you, the first thing to know is that the Gambling Helpline supports family members too. You do not have to wait for them to ask for help — you can call 0800 654 655 for yourself. The Problem Gambling Foundation also runs supporting someone groups around the country, both in-person and online.

A few things experienced counsellors will say:

• Do not try to control their gambling. Hiding cards, monitoring their phone, taking over the bank account — these tactics rarely work and usually entrench the secrecy. Recovery has to come from the person.
• Do tell them, factually, how it is affecting you. Not as an ultimatum, not as a threat. As information. "I am scared about the mortgage" is something they can hear; "you need to stop or I am leaving" usually is not, even if it is true.
• Direct them to the helpline. Give the number; do not make the call for them. The first call has to be theirs.
• Look after yourself. Living with someone else's gambling is exhausting. You are allowed to need support too.

If a casino isn't honouring your self-exclusion

Operators are required by their licence to respect self-exclusion. If you self-excluded and a casino lets you back in during the exclusion period, refuses to return a deposit made while excluded, or pays out winnings then voids them on the way back — that is a licence breach and you have options.

• Document everything. Screenshot the exclusion confirmation email, the date you self-excluded, every deposit made during the period, every login attempt, and every chat or email with support.
• File an internal complaint at the casino. Most operators have a formal complaints process buried under Help → Complaints; use it in writing.
• Escalate to the licensing authority. For Curaçao licensees, the Curaçao Gaming Control Board (gamingcontrolboard.cw); for Malta, the Malta Gaming Authority (mga.org.mt). Both accept player complaints from outside their jurisdiction.
• For NZ regulatory questions, the Department of Internal Affairs administers the Gambling Act 2003 — but has limited reach over offshore operators. They can advise; they cannot usually compel.

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Last reviewed: 16 June 2026 · Author: Noah Smith · How we rate