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New Zealand social media influencers are being read the riot act over affiliate-style promotion of foreign gambling websites, with the gambling regulator warning it will prosecute and fine violators.
The Department of Internal Affairs said it has warned four social media accounts and is investigating another 13 among dozens of influencers who it says are exploiting New Zealand’s pre-regulation window for offshore online gambling.
The authorities have had their hand forced after brazen use of social media influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers by gambling companies seeking to outsource the risk of breaching a Gambling Act prohibition on ads for offshore gambling services.
Vicki Scott, director of the department’s gambling regulatory services, told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) in a report on Monday (March 31) that influencers are cashing in on website promotions, including live streaming, website links and giveaways.
“We've been investigating this and we will be taking action in relation to those influencers who are very publicly and clearly breaking the law,” Scott said.
However, the only action has been cease-and-desist letters to the four influencers. The regulator has declined to identify them, citing a preference to “protect their privacy and their right to dispute their warnings”.
Scott added that a NZ$10,000 ($5,700) fine per breach should also serve as a deterrent, given how quickly breaches by non-compliant parties can accumulate.
Māori social media influencers are likely among those being investigated for online gambling promotions, a matter of sensitivity given much higher rates of problem gambling in New Zealand’s Indigenous communities.
Individual Maori influencers and community activists have been warning of influencer income from online gambling websites for the better part of a year.
“Influencers should know who their audience is,” said Pairama Wright, a former gambling addict and one of two Maori social media influencers who rejected gambling website overtures. He now denounces industry use of Maori influencers.
“Number one, it’s dodgy that they’re doing it in the first place. Number two, these people know how the system … how the influencing system works and that you have an agent and that’s the person you go through,” Wright told Te Ao Māori News last May.
“I find the whole process is kino [wicked],” he added.
The New Zealand government is preparing to introduce an online gambling market in early 2026, with up to 15 licensees able to advertise under a yet-to-be-implemented legislative and regulatory framework.
The government’s ability to enforce the law is more significant than in federal territories with decentralised regulation and enforcement, such as the US and Australia, markets that are only beginning to grapple with the nexus between social media influencers and online gambling.
Still, for the time being, online gambling advertising is rife in New Zealand, with Scott herself admitting that her department’s hands are tied on problem gambling counter-measures until the framework is in place.
Until then, “all it takes is to pick up your phone, look at your social media, and they’re everywhere”, she told RNZ.
“It’s a free-for-all out there.”
