Episode #1 - New Zealand's Licensing Auction and Argentina's Gambling Tax

This article covers the second half of the regulatory news from the first episode of Legacy Makers, the new weekly iGaming brief from the Legacy Builders Podcast, where our founder Laurent Zachar joined the show to discuss industry news. This piece covers New Zealand’s 2027 online casino licensing auction and what Argentina’s gambling tax revenue signals about that market. The full episode is embedded below.

• New Zealand’s licensing auction: who got in and who didn’t
• Why Stake’s compliance shift matters
• Why governments run these licensing processes
• What to check before entering a new jurisdiction
• Argentina’s $81 million gambling tax, and what it tells you
• FAQ

New Zealand’s licensing auction: who got in and who didn’t

New Zealand is running a licensing process for online casino operators ahead of a 2027 launch, structured as a competitive bidding process rather than a simple application. Laurent described the scale of it:

There were 32 bidders and they were having 10 rounds of bidding. The successful applicants were bidding 8.4 million.

Some of the names that secured licenses were expected, others less so:

Some companies like Entain, Betway, Supergroup, those ones basically managed to go through Skycity as well. It was super interesting to see that some crypto-focused casino operators, like Stake, managed to get in.

Operators who failed to qualify have to stop operating in the market once the licensing regime takes effect, a real consequence for brands that built a presence in New Zealand without securing one of the 32 contested slots.

Why Stake’s compliance shift matters

Stake’s inclusion stood out to Laurent specifically because of its history:

Stake has been operating under a Curaçao license for a super long time. But now, Stake seems to be getting more and more compliant. They have a license in Mexico, for example, in Argentina as well. So they are doing a little bit the Uber strategy, where they’ve been operating underground for so many years, but now that they made enough money, now they are trying to do it in a very compliant way.

He drew a direct comparison to the platform he founded:

Companies like Whitelabels.com have the exact same setup that Stake was having for so many years. You have a Curaçao license and an Anjouan license, and every brand you start with Whitelabels.com is using exactly those licenses. So if you’re wondering, is it compliant, well, you have the same level of compliance as Stake.com is having. Of course, this is not legal advice, but that’s why we classify Whitelabels.com as the very best way to start an online casino today.

Why governments run these licensing processes

Laurent was blunt about the motivation behind licensing regimes like New Zealand’s:

Before, when you had no license and everyone was underground, the problem for the state is that they were not getting any tax. That’s the number one reason why nation states are offering gambling licenses, because they can make money out of it.

A game tax on GGR is the expected revenue mechanism once New Zealand’s regime launches, on top of the 8.4 million in bidding fees already collected from the winning applicants. Our MGA vs Curaçao licence comparison covers how licensing cost and credibility trade off across other major jurisdictions, for operators weighing a similar decision.

What to check before entering a new jurisdiction

Beyond the licensing mechanics, Laurent emphasized that cultural fit decides whether a market entry works, not just legal access to it:

It’s super important to know, is it a market where I understand the psychology of the users. You need to make sure that you’re going to be able to produce games that people are going to want to play, and that you’re going to be able to advertise your games properly, because the culture is very different from one country to another.

He gave a concrete example of why game selection specifically has to be localized:

People want to play Mahjong in most of the Asian countries. If you don’t have Mahjong, then you’re not going to be successful.

This is where he pointed to a specific feature of the platform he founded, an AI tool that checks local market fit before a brand goes live:

Whenever you start a brand in a specific country, Whitelabels.com has an AI engine that scans what type of bonus other brands in the same country are having, and which games work the best in that specific country, so your brand is directly having the right type of game. There’s an index telling you how good your brand is against the market.

Argentina’s $81 million gambling tax, and what it tells you

Asked about Argentina’s reported $81 million in online gambling tax revenue, Laurent’s reaction was that the figure was smaller than expected for a market Argentina’s size, and he read that as a signal rather than just a data point:

It’s a big amount, but it’s not as big as what I expected. It seems to tell us that a lot of people are playing by the rules in Argentina, not having underground brands, because they still pay a lot of taxes. I’d be curious if it’s in growth or decline. My understanding is it’s in decline, because more and more people now start operating crypto casinos and offshore casinos, and they’re targeting the Argentine market.

He was careful to separate two different kinds of market signal, which is a distinction worth keeping in mind whenever a gambling tax figure gets reported as if it tells the whole story:

Tax and market data are not the same thing. Market data gives the size of the markets, whether underground or not. Tax data just gives you the share of it that’s a hundred percent regulated. It’s not because the gaming tax is decreasing in a country that the overall gambling industry in that country is decreasing, because more and more people are now playing in crypto.

FAQ

How does New Zealand’s online casino licensing process work?

It’s a competitive bidding process rather than a straightforward application. Thirty-two bidders went through ten rounds of bidding, with winning applicants paying 8.4 million in total. Operators who don’t secure a license have to stop operating in the market once the regime takes effect, expected by 2027.

Which operators secured a New Zealand license?

Laurent named Entain, Betway, Supergroup, and operators connected to Skycity as successful applicants, along with Stake, whose inclusion was notable given its crypto-casino origins and history operating under a Curaçao license.

Does Whitelabels.com offer the same level of licensing compliance as Stake?

According to Laurent, brands launched through Whitelabels.com operate under the same Curaçao and Anjouan licence combination that Stake relied on for most of its history, before Stake began adding additional licences in markets like Mexico and Argentina. This isn’t legal advice, and operators should confirm licensing requirements for their specific target market.

Why does Argentina’s gambling tax revenue matter if you’re not operating there?

It’s a useful general lesson in reading industry data: a tax figure only measures the regulated share of a market, not its total size. A declining regulated tax take can coincide with a growing overall market if players are shifting to crypto or offshore operators instead of disappearing.

Where can I watch the full episode?

The complete episode is embedded above, and also available on YouTube directly. It’s the first episode of Legacy Makers, a new weekly iGaming news segment on the Legacy Builders Podcast channel, the same show behind our founder’s original two-part interview.