Entain, the multinational behind the TAB, has told a conference that having “15 brands fighting tooth and nail” for New Zealand’s newly regulated online casino market could trigger tighter advertising restrictions. It is an unusual message from a company that stands to gain more from advertising than anyone. It is also correct.
The new regime was designed around a paradox. Advertising is the mechanism that makes the policy pay, and advertising is the thing most likely to kill it politically. Entain is telling its future competitors, and the regulator listening in, not to force the Government’s hand.
The Crown needs the ads to work
The fiscal logic is written into the Cabinet papers. Back in 2024, officials modelled that a licensing system would generate an extra $44 million in Crown revenue over the forecast period compared with a tax-only approach. The difference came from the expectation that licensed operators, allowed to advertise, would pull punters away from offshore sites and onto the tax base.
That base was already large. Offshore gambling revenue reported to Inland Revenue reached $342.5 million in the year to June 2023. So was the harm. Ministry of Health gambling presentations linked to online play more than doubled, from 435 in 2018/19 to 941 in 2022/23, according to a 2024 regulatory impact statement.
Those two sets of numbers are why every advertising decision is contested.
Every rule so far has tightened
The direction of travel is not ambiguous. In January 2026, Cabinet agreed to ban jackpot advertising, influencer and affiliate marketing, and images of coins or banknotes, with Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden saying at the time that advertising would “normalise gambling and incite excessive play”.
In July the Government added a ban on AI-generated deepfake celebrity endorsements, after officials noted synthetic influencers had already been observed in New Zealand. Casino advertising during live sport broadcasts is also off the table, and each licence carries a $7.5 million capital requirement alongside limits on time, deposits and spend.
The harm lobby wants more. In 2025, the Salvation Army argued the bill “does not prioritise harm prevention and minimisation” and called for the advertising ban to extend to licensed operators as well. That is the endgame Entain fears, and a saturation campaign from 15 brands in the lead-up to an election cycle would hand campaigners the evidence they need.
The operator with the most to lose
Entain is hardly a neutral observer. In March 2026, Australia and New Zealand chief executive Andrew Vouris confirmed the company was chasing the maximum three of the 15 licences, which would make it the only operator able to offer and promote sports betting, racing and casino products together. That bid sits alongside scrutiny of an Australian money-laundering case, which the Government confirmed would be weighed in licensing.
An incumbent calling for restraint is the oldest move in business. The TAB brand is already known to every punter in the country. The 12 or so newcomers must buy awareness from scratch, and restraint suits the name everyone already recognises.
But self-interest does not make the warning wrong. Under the DIA’s rules, each licence covers a single brand, lasts up to three years, and advertising stays prohibited until a licence is granted. That means all 15 brands will switch on at roughly the same moment. A synchronised launch blitz is almost guaranteed unless operators show some discipline.
Australia already ran this experiment
Entain points to Australia, where successive reviews steadily tightened gambling advertising and sponsorship after the public tired of wall-to-wall betting ads. Once that political momentum builds, it rarely reverses.
There is a genuine policy risk here, not just a commercial one. A paper commissioned for Entain this month argued that “prohibition does not work”, and that asymmetric advertising rules can push players back to unlicensed sites that pay no tax and offer no protections. Strip licensed operators of the ability to advertise and the $44 million case evaporates, while the offshore and scam sites carry on regardless.
What happens next
The auction is running this month, applications open in October, and unlicensed providers must cease from 1 December. The first ads from licensed brands will land in a market primed to be annoyed by them.
The industry has a narrow window to prove that a competitive, advertised, taxed market can coexist with public tolerance. If the 15 licensees treat launch as a land grab, the next Cabinet paper will write the rules for them, and it will not be the $44 million version. Entain has read that script correctly. The question is whether anyone else in the auction is listening.
Sources
- Newsroom: Entain warns of public backlash to a gambling ad blitz (2026-09-28)
- Gaming Awards: Entain confident in New Zealand’s iGaming potential (2026-09-28)
- DIA: Cabinet material on design of the online casino gambling regulatory system (2024-09-09)
- Regulation.govt.nz: Regulatory impact statement, online gambling regulatory design (2024-07-02)
- Newsroom: Influencers and images of money to be banned in online gambling adverts (2026-01-15)
- NZ Herald: Government bans AI-generated celebrity endorsements for online casinos, warns of scams (2026-07-29)
- Salvation Army: Submission on Online Casino Gambling Bill (2025-08)
- Newsroom: Money-laundering case threatens betting monopoly’s extension into online casinos (2026-03-25)
- DIA: Online gambling for providers (2026-08-21)
- iGaming Times: Paper for Entain says channelisation should be the test of gambling policy (2026-09-08)
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