If you've bought a ticket in a big charity lottery like Coastguard's or the Heart Foundation's home lottery online in the last couple of years, it's easy to assume that's just how it's always worked. It hasn't. For most of New Zealand's gambling law history, that wasn't legal, and the reason it changed is a genuinely interesting piece of regulatory history, not just a website upgrade.
The starting point: a general ban on gambling over the internet or phone.
New Zealand's Gambling Act contains a broad restriction on what it calls "remote interactive gambling," essentially gambling conducted through a communication device rather than in person. This wasn't aimed at charity raffles specifically. It was built to stop unregulated offshore gambling operators reaching New Zealanders through websites and apps outside New Zealand's control, at a time when online gambling was mostly associated with exactly that kind of risk.
The practical effect, though, was that it also covered legitimate local Class 3 lotteries. Coastguard, the Heart Foundation, and every other charity running a licensed prize lottery had to sell tickets in person, by phone order, or by post. A website with an "add to cart" button for a $100 raffle ticket simply wasn't a legal option.
2020: an emergency exemption, not a redesign.
When COVID-19 made in-person ticket sales genuinely difficult, DIA introduced a temporary exemption allowing licensed Class 3 lotteries to sell tickets online — added as section 4A of the Gambling Act, explicitly framed as a COVID-19 response measure.
1 November 2024: it became permanent.
It didn't revert. Parliament passed the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Act 2024, making online ticket sales for licensed Class 3 lotteries a permanent part of the rules from 1 November 2024. What started as a stop-gap during lockdowns became a lasting change once it was clear the sky hadn't fallen, charities had adapted, and online sales had become a genuinely better way to reach supporters without adding meaningful new harm.
Why this actually matters, beyond the trivia.
It explains a few things people often assume were always true. It's why older, established charity lotteries, the ones that have been running for decades, only got proper online stores relatively recently, not because they were slow to modernise, but because it was genuinely against the rules until 2024. It's also why the general "remote interactive gambling" ban is still very much alive and relevant everywhere else, which is exactly why unlicensed sales promotions and giveaways generally still can't be run purely online.
Online ticket sales aren't a grey area or a workaround anymore. They're a normal, permanent part of how a Class 3 lottery is allowed to operate. That wasn't true five years ago, and it's worth knowing why, if only so you don't assume every rule in this space has been fixed and settled for decades. Some of the ones that feel most obvious now are genuinely recent.
Take a look at real examples already doing this well — Coastguard and the Heart Foundation both run fully online ticket sales for licensed lotteries now, something that simply wasn't legal five years ago. You can see both, and others, verified in our Lottery Directory.