Tools, Resources and 24/7 Help for NZ Players

If You Need Help Right Now

Free. Confidential. Available 24 hours a day.

Gambling Helpline Aotearoa: 0800 654 655 · free · 24/7 · text 8006 · live chat at gamblinghelpline.co.nz

PGF Services: 0800 664 262 · free counselling, in person and online

Mapu Maia (Pacific): 0800 21 21 22

Asian Family Services: 0800 862 342

Need to talk? 1737 · free 24/7 mental health line

If you’re worried about someone close to you, the same numbers offer support for whānau and family. You don’t need to be the gambler to call.

A Different Frame for Thinking About This

Gambling sits in an awkward place culturally. Most people who do it are fine. A meaningful minority aren’t. The line between the two isn’t always obvious, especially from the inside, and the framing matters: this isn’t a willpower issue. People who can stop don’t because they’re stronger; they stop because they have less of a propensity for the thing in the first place. People who can’t stop don’t continue because they’re weaker; they continue because the activity has hooked into something that the standard “just stop” advice doesn’t reach.

The practical implication: if you’re reading this page wondering whether you might be in trouble, the answer to test isn’t “can I will myself to stop.” It’s “do my actions match my intentions.” If you sit down planning to play for an hour and play for four, repeatedly, that’s the signal. Not the dollar amount. Not whether you’re winning or losing. Whether your actions match your intentions.

Warning Signs Worth Naming

The patterns that show up before things become serious:

Gambling for longer than planned, repeatedly. The clock disappears.

Gambling more money than planned, repeatedly. The budget keeps moving.

Chasing losses — betting bigger to win back what’s gone.

Hiding the amount or frequency from people close to you.

Borrowing to gamble, or gambling money meant for bills, rent, food.

Feeling restless or irritable when not gambling.

Lying about wins. Lying about losses.

Trying to stop and not being able to.

The helplines exist for exactly these patterns. Calling is free, anonymous, and won’t trigger any kind of intervention beyond a conversation.

Tools That Actually Work

In rough order of commitment:

Deposit limits at the operator level. Most operators including 1win let you set daily, weekly, or monthly caps on how much you can deposit. Once set, the limit is harder to lift than to set — deliberately.

Session time limits. If you tell yourself “one hour” and routinely play three, a hard time limit is more reliable than your hourly intentions.

Cooling-off periods. Short blocks, typically 24 hours to 30 days, during which you can’t access your account. Useful when you can feel a chase forming.

Self-exclusion at a single operator. Long-term blocks, six months to permanent. Once active they cannot be reversed early.

Multi-operator self-exclusion. From late 2026, NZ-licensed operators will be required to support cross-operator self-exclusion. Today, NZ players using offshore operators need to self-exclude on each platform individually.

Network-level blocking. Tools like Gamban, BetBlocker and GamStop block access at the device or DNS level. Free to a few dollars a month. They work.

Bank-level gambling blocks. ASB, BNZ, Westpac, Kiwibank, ANZ all offer card blocks at the merchant-category level. Significant friction step.

Talk to someone. The helplines above are staffed for this. The conversation is the intervention.

Setting Limits at 1win Specifically

Log in. Account → Settings → Responsible Gambling. From there: deposit limits (daily, weekly, monthly), session time limits, cooling-off period requests, self-exclusion.

If you can’t access these settings or your request hasn’t processed, contact 1win support directly through the operator’s live chat. We are not a customer support channel for 1win and cannot action limits on your behalf.

When the Person in Trouble Isn’t You

If someone you love is in trouble with gambling:

Don’t lend money. Even when the request is reasonable. Especially when the request is reasonable.

Don’t cover for them. Hiding the consequences makes the next step harder.

Don’t try to gamble alongside them. “Keeping an eye on it” rarely works that way.

Do call the helpline yourself. PGF Services in particular has counselling specifically for family members. The support is for you too — living with someone in active addiction is its own thing and the people on the other end of those numbers know it.

Know the cultural-specific services. Pacific whānau: Mapu Maia (0800 21 21 22). Asian whānau: Asian Family Services (0800 862 342). Māori-specific services are listed at safergambling.org.nz.

What Changes With the New NZ Regime

From 1 December 2026, only operators with a granted or pending NZ licence can lawfully offer online casino gambling to NZ players. Licensed operators will have stronger harm-minimisation duties: identity and age verification, mandatory deposit limits, multi-operator self-exclusion support, formal complaints process, and a 1.24% problem gambling levy that funds support services.

In the meantime, if you’re playing at an offshore casino, the operational responsibility for harm minimisation sits more squarely with you and with your bank. The tools above work regardless of operator licensing. The helplines work regardless of where you played.

Age Restriction

You must be 18 or older to gamble online in New Zealand. We don’t direct content at people under 18, and material on this site is intended only for adults.

A Word About Stigma

Problem gambling carries stigma it doesn’t deserve. The condition is well-understood, treatable, and statistically common — around 0.3–0.5% of NZ adults meet the clinical threshold for problem gambling at any given time, with another 1–2% in the at-risk band.

The people in those numbers aren’t a separate population. They’re regular people, the same as everyone reading this page, who happened to encounter a particular activity that hooks more easily into their nervous system than it does into someone else’s. The phone call to 0800 654 655 is the same phone call you’d make about a different health issue. The people who answer treat it that way.

Final Note

If you’re reading this page because something feels off, that instinct is worth trusting. Most people who eventually call a helpline describe the period before they called as one in which they knew something was wrong but kept hoping it would resolve itself.

It usually doesn’t. The helplines are 0800 654 655 (Gambling Helpline) and 0800 664 262 (PGF). Free, 24/7, no judgement.