Responsible gambling
Eighteen is the minimum age for the sites ranked here. New Zealand's own venues, from SkyCity Auckland to Grand Casino Dunedin, hold the line at twenty, so an age that clears one does not automatically clear the other.
Three settings are worth changing on the day you open an account, long before anything goes wrong. A deposit cap decides how much reaches the balance each week. A session reminder interrupts play at an interval you pick. A loss limit stops the account when a figure you set in advance is reached. Reductions to any of them take effect immediately; increases are deliberately delayed, so the version of you that wants a bigger ceiling at midnight never gets it.
Trouble tends to show up in behaviour before it shows up in the balance: hours that run past what was planned, stakes that climb after a losing run, sessions kept quiet at home. Support is free and confidential through the Gambling Helpline NZ on 0800 654 655, open every hour of the day, and through the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand, which also works with partners, whānau and friends.