Find the top-rated slot sites and the best online pokies, expertly reviewed and ranked by our slot specialists.
Our comprehensive NZ pokies guide covers everything you need to know - from game types and mechanics to key features, themes and the latest slot bonuses.
With hundreds of pokie sites in New Zealand, our experts - led by Paul Twaddle - have carefully selected the best ones based on our key criteria:
When it comes to jackpots, three NZ casinos stand out for their extensive offerings of progressive jackpot pool games.
Jackpot Village offers a wide selection of over 200 jackpot pokie titles, including popular Kings Millions pokies like Gold Blitz and Dream Drop games such as 5 Doggy Millionaires. They also feature a variety of Mega Moolah progressive jackpot pokies, including Break Da Bank Again.
Key Features: Each week, up to 10 players can win a share of $500 in Jackpot Village’s random cash giveaway by playing and wagering.
BetVictor features a range of jackpot pokies, including Jackpot King and Dream Drop, with prize pools reaching up to seven figures. They also offer Rapid Fire Jackpot games with bonus features for more ways to play.
Key Features: The BetVictor ‘Spinners Club’ allows users to win up to 200 free spins every week by depositing a minimum of $50.
WizSlots features a wide range of jackpot pokies, including WowPot titles like the ancient-themed Book of Atem and a variety of Jackpot King games. They also offer numerous Sweet Jackpot progressive pokies, with Fluffy Favourites being our standout option.
Key Features: The ‘Mystic Fortune Reveal’ at WizSlots gives players daily free spins on the Gold Train pokie when they make a deposit.
Megaways is now such a popular online pokies format that we have researched pokie sites that offer the biggest variety of Megaways games.
Here are the Gambling.com top three picks for the best Megaways pokie sites in New Zealand.
Big Boost offers nearly 260 Megaways pokies, giving pokie players plenty of options to choose from. Popular Megaways titles like The Dog House Megaways and Great Rhino Megaways are also included in Pragmatic Play’s 'Drops & Wins’ promotion, featuring random daily prize drops.
Key Features: Pokie players can get a ‘Mid-Week Bonus Boost’ and get up to $200 every week.
Nitro excels when it comes to its number of online pokies, boasting over 120 Megaways titles, such as 10,001 Nights Megaways and Fruit Shop Megaways. Play all the Megaways titles for real money or just for fun using demo mode.
Key Features: Unlock weekly rewards, where you can get up to 50 free spins on the pokie game Temple Tumble at Nitro.
Many NZ pokie sites offer customers regular online pokie promotions and bonus spins to extend your gameplay or reward loyalty.
Here, we detail what the pokie experts at Gambling.com consider to be the best online pokie promotions for 2025:
FatFruit has one of the biggest promotions seen at a pokie site in New Zealand to date. Get up to $10,500 and 500 free spins when signing up. Get daily and monthly rewards at FatFruit, with every Monday having the chance to claim 30% up to $750.
Key Features: Get up to 350 free spins every week using the promo code ‘SNACK’ when depositing as little as $30.
At Vegas Now, players can access more perks after their initial sign-up bonus. For example, pokie players have the chance to spin the wheel and win $25,000 every Monday when depositing a minimum of $100 the previous week.
Key Features: Every month, users can get 100% up to $500 as part of Vegas Nows Monthly Bankroll Booster using the promo code ‘100BOOST’.
LuckySpins has been making big strides in the world of online pokies. Join their daily pokie promotions, such as the 'Daily Spins Galore', where you can get up to 150 free spins every weekend to use on their huge collection of 5000+ games.
Key Features: Get free spins and 25% up to $100 every Monday when depositing as little as $20.
New pokie sites are very much in demand thanks to their cutting-edge designs, fresh content and up-to-date features.
Below are the top three picks for the best new pokie sites in New Zealand.
Launched in 2024, Casiku has rapidly built an impressive library of over 2,500 pokie games. It has quickly earned a spot as one of our top recommendations for pokie players in New Zealand. This fresh pokie site boasts a range of options, including over 75 Must Go jackpot pokies and daily pokie promotions.
Key Features: Users can win up to $500 every week in the Casiku Loyalty Raffle.
With a massive selection of 4,000 pokie games, Winsane offers endless options for players. One advantage of newer pokie sites is their ability to stay ahead of industry trends, ensuring users always have access to the latest features. Winsane supports both traditional payment methods and a variety of cryptocurrencies, a rarity among more established platforms.
Key Features: Pokie players can enjoy daily promotions, earning rewards like free spins and bonus cash.
Since its launch in 2024, Shotz has been making a name for itself in the online pokie scene. With a dedicated section for bonus buy pokies, featuring hit titles like Candy Blitz and Coin Quest 2, players have access to a selection of exciting options. Their ‘Going Viral’ category, highlights the most popular pokie games being played worldwide like Peppe’s Pepperoni Pizza Plaza.
Key Features: Take advantage of a variety of promotions, with the chance to claim up to 30 free spins on FRKN Bananas as part of their Powered Free Spins offer.
The best slot sites offer exciting sign-up bonuses, including free spins, alongside regular promotions and rewards for loyal players.
These sites feature a diverse selection of pokie games with unique themes from top software providers, along with the latest releases and the biggest jackpots.
When reviewing pokie sites, we ensure they are licensed and regulated, which guarantees fair play and security.
The earliest online pokies in New Zealand were quite straightforward, typically featuring five reels with three rows. The very first online video pokie to include a bonus round, known as 'Reel ‘em In’, was introduced in 1996.
Fast forward almost two decades, and today's pokie users are presented with an entirely new generation of casino pokies, offering various formats and enticing features.
Unsurprisingly, these pokies draw inspiration from traditional pub fruit machines. They typically feature a retro style and are composed of either three or five reels, with basic graphics and sounds.
Reel King is a prime example of a fruit machine pokie that has made a successful transition from a pub kiosk to online pokies sites, including at one of my online casinos, PlayOJO.
While NetEnt’s Gonzo’s Quest and Starburst are considered modern-day classics, purists often classify true classic pokies as games like IGT’s Da Vinci Diamonds or Barcrest’s Action Bank.
With an impressive 117,649 ways to win, it’s easy to see the appeal of the innovative Megaways game mechanic, especially when the cost per spin can be as low as $0.20.
Games like Fishin’ Frenzy Megaways demonstrate how this innovative feature can be integrated into popular online pokies.
Slingo, a blend of slots and bingo, provides a distinctive gaming experience where players complete a bingo-style grid with numbers spun on a slot reel.
The goal is to match numbers to complete winning lines ('slingos') and advance up the prize ladder toward a full house and the top prize.
Nowadays, game developers are eager to create highly volatile online pokies, providing players with the opportunity for larger but less frequent wins
Hacksaw Gaming, in particular, are renowned for its extremely volatile online pokies, with titles like Wanted Dead or A Wild. In these games, it truly is an all-or-nothing experience, emphasising a high-risk, high-reward style of gameplay.
Many seasoned pokie users, myself included, have yet to hit ‘max win’ on one of the highest-paying pokies.
NetEnt were the first to break the 100k barrier with Dead or Alive 2, offering a maximum payout of 111,111x your stake, later surpassing it with the release of Starburst XXXtreme at 200,000x.
However, Nolimit City's Tombstone RIP now tops the charts, with an unprecedented 300,000x payout, achieved soon after the game’s release in January 2022.
Such wins are among the reasons why Nolimit City pokies have secured a place in the favourite pokies lists of many players.
The dream of landing a huge fortune is on offer with progressive jackpot pokies, with each bet contributing a small portion to a continually growing jackpot.
These progressive pokie pools keep on increasing until one player strikes it rich.
The biggest is the WowPot and Mega Moolah series of jackpot pokies, but below, I've listed all of the big online pokies jackpots currently up for grabs for users, along with the best online pokie sites in New Zealand where you can try your luck for each.
*The Jackpot King jackpot total varies between pokie sites.
The biggest online progressive jackpot payouts have mostly been won on the WowPot and Mega Moolah series of pokies.
Microgaming launched the safari-themed Mega Moolah progressive jackpot pokie back in 2006 to much acclaim. In 2015, it paid out a £13.2 million jackpot to Jonathan Heywood from the minimum 25p stake.
Since its release, the game has expanded into a series of titles that all feed into the same jackpot, such as Absolootly Mad, which paid the largest Mega Moolah jackpot of £16.9 million in April 2021.
That huge win came just two weeks after a WowPot jackpot of £15.2 million was won by a UK pokies player on the Book of Atem online pokie. Watch:
However, WowPot regained its crown with a world-record online pokies jackpot of £33 million, won in late 2023 on the aptly named Wheel of Wishes.
While the pokies above all contribute to shared jackpot pools, the following pokies are stand-alone games, each boasting its own progressive jackpot:
These individual casino pokies can still pay out staggering jackpots, including the €17.9 million won on Mega Fortune by a Finnish player.
While the biggest progressive jackpots can take weeks or even months to be paid out, there are also daily jackpot games that are guaranteed to pay out every day.
Sometimes called ‘Daily Drop’, ‘Must Drop’, 'Must Go' or ‘Must Win’, these progressive jackpots ensure a jackpot winner each day.
At the best pokie sites, you can watch the countdown of when the daily jackpot ‘must drop’ in their games lobby and choose to play just before the jackpot time limit is up.
Here are some of our favourite daily jackpot pokies for users:
There’s an endless variety of online pokie game themes to choose from, catering to all preferences. Below are the most popular themes and favourites from each.
There are numerous excellent pokies based on popular TV shows, which offer fans an interactive way to immerse themselves in their favourite characters and themes.
This Microgaming pokie really captures the essence of the legendary HBO series, including its stirring soundtrack and actual clips from the Westeros saga. Unusually, you can choose from four free spin features and even have the opportunity to gamble your winnings.
No other game provider excels at creating adult cartoon-themed pokies more than Blueprint; it's truly their forte. The mechanics of this game may seem familiar, but it is more than just a reskinned pokie. You get to choose from four fantastic bonus features: Pickle Rick Spins, Federation Wild Spins, Vindicator Spins and Mystery Spins, all with a potential maximum win of 50,000x.
There are probably more online pokies based around mythology than any other genre - players will never tire of these mythological pokies, and game providers regularly release new versions.
Immerse yourself in the realm of the gods with this stylish Pragmatic Play pokie, where Zeus oversees your play. I always like it when reel symbols tumble rather than spin while winning combinations are paid and then replaced by new symbols for additional wins. Although four scatters are required to trigger the bonus round, you are rewarded with a generous 15 free spins to start.
This is one of Yggdrasil’s finest pokies and I consider it considerably better than its highly anticipated successor, Valley of the Gods 2. Each win unlocks ‘blockers’ and remains sticky, allowing for some great incremental wins. The clean graphics, smooth animation and eerie sound effects result in a truly immersive pokie.
New releases of Ancient Egyptian-themed pokies often share common characteristics, including expanding reels, the potential to retrigger bonuses and opportunities to gamble each win.
Skillfully remastered by Novomatic, Book of Ra Deluxe continues to entertain players more than 15 years after its debut in land-based casinos. Recognised as the pioneer of the ‘Expanding Reels’ feature, it was also one of the first online pokies to offer the opportunity to retrigger the bonus feature and award extra free spins with additional expanding reel symbols.
If Book of Dead from Play’n GO was modelled on the original Book of Ra, then perhaps Legacy of Dead was inspired by Book of Ra Deluxe, featuring the same expanding reels and bonus retriggers. But what sets 'Legacy of Dead' apart are its distinctive themes and advanced graphics, making it another favourite with pokie players.
Pirate-themed pokies invite players to set sail on thrilling adventures in search of hidden treasures. Packed with swashbuckling characters, treasure maps and stormy seas, these games offer exciting gameplay and plenty of chances to uncover bountiful rewards on the high seas.
A Hollywood style cinematic intro gives you high expectations of this 2021 release from Relax Gaming - and it doesn’t disappoint. Dead Man’s Trail offers a rewarding Coin Feature during the base game along with a Trail Bonus round where you can win up to 50,000x your stake.
Considered a classic by many seasoned pokie players, this Novamatic pokie offers a 50/50 gamble feature after each win. It gives you the chance to infinitely retrigger more free spins during the bonus round, complemented by a 4x multiplier.
Whilst those are the most common themes for online pokies in New Zealand, players have endless options - from Dinosaurs to Dragons, Sci-Fi to Sweets or Vampires to Vikings. No matter your preference, there is almost certainly an online pokie themed around it.
A few other classic pokie games that stand out for their timeless appeal and unique charm are:
Launched back in 2013, this exquisitely simple pokie from NetEnt is, without a doubt, the most played online pokie ever. There isn’t a traditional bonus feature; instead, the key to big wins lies in the expanding Starburst wild symbols. These wilds remain sticky while triggering one or two more respins, a unique mechanic that has contributed to its enduring popularity.
Themed around the Yukon trail, Bonanza was responsible for a flurry of similarly themed pokies - all of which were literally trying to jump on the gold rush bandwagon. Smooth gameplay is accompanied by a chirpy soundtrack and plenty of ‘yee-haws’ when you land a big win on this BTG pokie.
Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead is a popular Egyptian-themed pokie game by Play’n GO. Featuring a five-reel, 10-payline setup, it follows adventurer Rich Wilde as he uncovers ancient treasures. With expanding symbols and free spins, this high volatility pokie offers thrilling gameplay and a maximum win of 5,000x.
This legendary release from NetEnt is a five-reel, 20-payline pokie featuring an adventurous conquistador searching for El Dorado. It introduced the Avalanche feature, where cascading symbols replace wins, increasing multipliers up to 5x in the base game and 15x in Free Falls. A medium-high volatility pokie, it offers edge-of-your-seat gameplay.
I love the nostalgic feel of this Blueprint pokie, based on Spielberg’s 1980’s cult classic film where you can join Mikey, Chunk and the gang as you hunt for One-Eyed Willy’s treasure. Fans will instantly recognise iconic moments like the ‘Hey you guys’ intro from the toothless Sloth and with randomly awarded bonus features during the base game, plus the potential of landing the ‘red’ Super Bonus and No Lose gamble, this ranks among my all-time favourite pokies.
Whilst the basic concept of most online pokies is the same, many offer a unique mix of game mechanics and features that impact gameplay and potential winnings.
Here is my summary of the main characteristics of online pokies:
When you fire up any online pokie, the first thing you’re presented with is the base game, which offers the standard reel configuration and symbols for that particular pokie.
A quick dip into the information section and you’ll find the pay table, which displays the value of each reel symbol and the payouts for winning combinations. The base game is usually straightforward, and you just need to choose your bet size and start spinning.
The bet size, also known as the spin value, allows you to customise your play and tailor wagers to suit your budget. The way it is calculated can vary for different pokie games but typically includes the following elements:
Most online pokies require a minimum of three matching symbols to create a win, although some pokies pay for matching just two of the highest-value symbols.
Traditionally, winning combinations are formed by matching symbols on adjacent reels, with the default being left to right, although innovation has brought us several interesting payout structures, including:
While the base game creates more frequent and occasional big payouts, it’s the bonus round that unlocks the premium symbols with the largest multipliers for the biggest wins.
The bonus round is usually triggered when three or more Scatter symbols are landed, which then awards free spins along with enhanced features and multipliers, such as:
Pokie tournaments add a competitive edge to spinning the reels, with additional rewards above and beyond regular pokie gameplay.
In these scheduled tournaments, players compete against each other to win cash prizes or other rewards.
While each pokie tournament has its own rules, the goal is always to accumulate points to rise up the leaderboard.
Here, I have listed the tournaments currently available at NZ pokie sites:
The most popular online pokies tournaments in New Zealand are Drops & Wins, available exclusively on Pragmatic Play pokie games.
With a monthly prize pool of $2 million, this promotion offers prize-paying positions on weekly tournament leaderboards, plus random daily prize drops:
I especially like the random daily prize drops which give everyone who plays a chance to win, not just those who make it onto the weekly leaderboard.
For beginners and seasoned players alike, playing online pokies can be an exciting and potentially lucrative pastime. To maximise your enjoyment and improve your chances of winning, here are some key strategies and tips to consider:
1. Understand the Basics: It's good to grasp the basics before you start playing. Understand what paylines, reels and symbols mean. Learn about different types of pokies – classic, Megaways, progressive jackpots and more. Also, get familiar with terms like Return to Player (RTP) and Volatility. RTP refers to the percentage of all wagered money a pokie machine will pay back to players over time, and Volatility relates to the risk level associated with a particular pokie game.
2. Choose the Right Pokie: With the vast array of NZ pokies available, selecting the right one can seem daunting. The key is to find a pokie that fits your preferences and playing style. Consider factors like the theme, volatility and bonus round options.
3. Utilise Free Spins and Bonuses: Most online pokie sites in New Zealand offer free spins, bonuses and promotions. These can be a great way to try out a game before risking real money or to extend your playtime. Always read the terms and conditions associated with any pokie bonus, as there can be wagering requirements or other restrictions.
4. Manage your Bankroll: Responsible gaming involves setting a budget for your online pokie play and sticking to it. Never wager more than you can afford to lose, and consider setting a time limit for your play sessions to prevent getting carried away.
5. Keep it Fun: While we all enjoy daydreaming of spinning a huge payout, I personally rate a pokie according to its theme, game mechanics, artwork and the quality of the sound effects - elements that truly enrich the experience of playing pokies online. Remember, the primary goal of playing pokies is entertainment. Keeping this perspective can help make your online gaming experience more enjoyable.
The world of online pokies in New Zealand offers an endless array of choices. You’ll discover games with captivating themes, innovative features and diverse formats, plus massive jackpots and fun variations like Slingo.
All of the pokie sites in New Zealand I have recommended on this page provide players with a broad selection of real-money pokies within a safe and secure environment.
Based on extensive research and player feedback, I have highlighted not only what I consider to be the best pokie sites, but also the best online pokie games available today.
But don’t just take my word for it. There are a huge variety of NZ online pokies bonuses and promotions that enable you to try different pokies and find your favourites.
As you embark on this exciting journey, it is crucial to always play responsibly. Set sensible limits for yourself and always gamble within your means. Your safety and well-being are paramount as you explore the best of what online pokies in New Zealand have to offer.
Yes, you can win real money on online pokies in New Zealand at licensed sites listed on the page. These pokie sites use random number generators, providing fair and regulated gameplay and enabling players to potentially win real money through various pokie games.
Pokies are games of chance, and completely random, so it's hard to find out how to win at the pokies. Some tips include setting aside a dedicated amount to play for fun, placing appropriately sized bets so the bankroll will last, and playing high RTP and big max win pokies for the highest payout potential at NZ online pokies casinos.
The best pokies are found on the top pokie sites, as listed on our page. These sites provide an extensive selection of pokies from renowned software developers, ensuring high-quality graphics, engaging gameplay, and a wide variety of themes and features.
Players can discover a wide variety of pokie games at all the best pokie sites. These include classic pokies, video pokies, progressive jackpots, and themed pokies, catering to a wide range of interests and gaming preferences. You will also find pokie tournaments if you prefer a more competitive edge.
A pokie site's safety and legitimacy are best determined by its licence, as with all the sites we recommended on our page. Licensing is a hallmark of stringent regulatory standards, ensuring player safety, fair play, and the integrity of the gaming experience.