New Zealand is the land of rugby, hobbits, and beautiful mountains. It is home to the first man to ever climb the peak of Mt. Everest—Edmund Hillary. It’s also a casino-friendly country.
Although NZ does not license online betting sites, it allows Kiwis to gamble online through offshore casinos. A few New Zealanders have won over one million NZ dollars while playing casino games.
In this article, we’ll outline the best-paying casino games in NZ. You can find most of these games at casinos with the highest payout. But first, learn each game’s payout percentage:
| Casino Game | Payout Percentage |
| Blackjack | 99% |
| Slots | 90%to 98% |
| Video Poker | 99% |
| European Roulette | 97.3% |
| American Roulette | 94.8% |
| Craps | 98% |
| Baccarat | 97% |
Now that you know the payout percentage of different casino games, let’s dig deeper on how each game works:
Blackjack
Blackjack has a 99% payout, making it the best-paying casino game in New Zealand. It’s a one-on-one card game played against the casino’s dealer. The goal is to produce a hand of 21.
If you beat the dealer, you’re paid 3:2. Some casinos have 6:5 payouts. But you should avoid these sites. A 3:2 payout leaves you with more money in your account in the long term.
The game comes in several variations. Classic blackjack is the most popular edition. Other popular variants include Blackjack Switch, Spanish 21, Vegas Strip, Perfect Pairs, and Atlantic City Blackjack.
Learn the rules of the game by playing free blackjack. You could even experiment with different strategies through online free games. Once you become a decent player, try it for real money at a casino with live blackjack.
For the uninitiated, live blackjack allows you to play the game against a human dealer in real time. All you need is a clear web camera and fast Internet. Live blackjack is more interesting, but it’s also highly competitive.
Slot Machines
Slots are incredibly popular in the NZ casino space. Rawiri Pou, the Kiwi who won NZ$10M at an online casino in 2016, did so while playing a slot machine. The game—Mega Moolah—is a progressive jackpot known for its ridiculously high payouts.
Although progressive jackpots could help you win a lot of money, they have lower payouts than video slots. Due to this, most experts recommend video slots like Money Train 3, Starburst, and Book of Dead over Mega Moolah.
The standard video slot has a 96% Return to Player (RTP). Progressive jackpots have a 90% to 95% payout rate. Classic slots, any type of pokie machines, have low RTPs and zero interesting features.
Play classic slots only if you want to invoke nostalgia. Otherwise, choose video slots. Megaways, a type of pokies invented in Australia, comes with tens of thousands of ways to win. But that also means they’re highly volatile.
Video Poker
Video poker gives you the best of slot machines and poker. It’s simple to play and mostly dependent on luck. But if you know how to differentiate poker hands, you could use this knowledge to maximize your video poker profits.
Video poker has an impressive payout of 99%. Jacks or Better is the most popular version of the game. It challenges you to produce a strong poker hand after betting between one and five coins.
If you wager five coins and produce a royal flush, Jacks or Better pays you back 400 coins. To win, you decide whether to keep or discard the cards dealt to you by the game’s RNG software. Keep card combinations that can help you produce a real poker hand.
Poker
New Zealanders who love games that require critical thinking pick poker over other casino games. Poker is such a technical game that an American judge once dismissed a case because poker is a game of skill and not luck.
For beginners, Texas Hold’em is the best poker game to play. It’s highly popular. It has liberal rules and nearly every online casino in NZ offers this variation. Texas Hold’em is also available online as a free game.
Use free-to-play casino games to practice your Hold’em skills. Learn when to fold, when to increase your stakes, and how to bluff effectively. Play the game consistently to improve your confidence before you play it for real money.
Poker doesn’t feature a traditional payout rate. Players place a bet and the winner walks away with the pot. Casinos take a small fee from each player, usually 2% to 10%.
That being said, also check out these poker variants:
- Omaha
- Omaha Hi-Lo
- Three Card Poker
- 5-Card Draw
- 7-Card Stud
Roulette
Roulette is a classic casino game. It’s fast-paced, simple to play, thrilling, and based on pure chance. You risk your money knowing there’s a high chance you will lose it.
That being said, roulette bets are not created equal. European roulette offers better payouts than the American roulette version. Similarly, bets like red/black give you better-winning chances than straight-number predictions.
In light of that information, your roulette picks play a big role in determining your winning chances. European roulette has a 2.7% house edge, which translates to a 97.3% payout. The American variant has a 5.2% house advantage, meaning it pays out 94.8% of wagered money.
Because of the differences in payouts, choose European over American roulette always. French roulette offers even better payouts for even-money bets like odd/even. Otherwise, it has the same payouts as European roulette.
Baccarat
James Bond’s favorite card game isn’t so popular in New Zealand. But it’s an excellent game to play, nonetheless. Here’s why. You can back three winning hands.
You can bet on the banker, (99%RTP), player (98.8%RTP), or a tie (85.7%RTP). The banker’s hand has the best-winning record in baccarat. Ties should be avoided. Winning means producing a hand of 8 or 9.
For clarity, baccarat is different from blackjack. The game lacks 10-value cards, including kings and queens. Ace cards have a value of one and not 11. You can find baccarat at many top-tier websites for casino gaming.
Craps
Craps might be a game of luck. But it has an incredibly high payout rate of 98.64%. It has two main bet types—pass and don’t pass bets. If you pick a pass bet, you win if the initial dice outcome is a 7 or 11. On the contrary, all don’t pass bets lose. These bets win if the outcome is a 2 or 3.