Katsubet

Katsubet Casino is an offshore online casino that accepts New Zealand players under a Curaçao Gaming Authority licence, not a New Zealand one. Its licence number resolves to row 547 of the licensor’s own public register, the starting point for this review, where the recorded status reads “Assessment in progress” rather than a clean current term.

New Zealand’s Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 has been in force since 1 May 2026, but the Department of Internal Affairs has issued zero licences and publishes no public register of licensed online casinos. Katsubet therefore cannot be called NZ-licensed. Playing there stays lawful for the player under the Gambling Act 2003, which restricts the operator rather than the customer, even though the activity remains unregulated.

Scores55 Tech, the Curaçao company behind Katsubet, backs a genuine NZ$ welcome package, a library of pokies and live tables from named studios, and payment methods that leave out POLi, Prezzy Card and PayPal entirely. Wagering runs at 35x, withdrawals cap at €10,000 a week, and identity verification is deferred to the first payout rather than skipped.

Operator	Scores55 Tech, Curaçao company registration 162990
Licence	Curaçao Gaming Authority OGL/2024/1307/0748, register row 547, status “Assessment in progress” as at 6 February 2026
New Zealand licence	None — no NZ online casino licence exists as of 25 July 2026
Welcome bonus	100% up to NZ$400 plus 100 free spins, 35x wagering
Account currency	NZ$ is a listed currency, alongside EUR, USD, AUD, CAD and ten cryptocurrencies
Verification (KYC)	Deferred to the first payout, requested at the operator’s discretion
Weekly withdrawal cap	€10,000 (€40,000 monthly)

Is Katsubet Casino Legal for Players in New Zealand?

Katsubet Casino is legal for a New Zealand player to use right now, because the Gambling Act 2003 stops an operator from being based in New Zealand, not a customer from using an overseas site. Scores55 Tech operates Katsubet under Curaçao Gaming Authority licence OGL/2024/1307/0748, tied to company registration 162990.

The Licence behind the Site

Opening the register changes what that footer text is worth. The Curaçao Gaming Authority’s own Online Gaming License Registry, last updated 6 February 2026, records row 547 as follows:

• Licence OGL/2024/1307/0748 — the number in Katsubet’s footer, exactly.
• Company registration 162990 — also an exact match.
• Company type B2C, an operator licence rather than a supplier one.
• Issued 24 June 2025, expired 24 December 2025, status “Assessment in progress”.

That status is not a Katsubet-specific red flag. Of the register’s 629 numbered rows, 242 carry the same “Assessment in progress” wording, and 219 of those show a printed expiry date that had already passed by the 6 February 2026 edition. The wording describes Curaçao’s transition to its current licensing regime rather than a problem unique to this operator.

One detail is worth naming plainly. The register lists the licensee as “Scores55 Tech N.V.”, the site’s own footer and terms as “Scores55 Tech B.V.”, and registration number 162990 sits in both records. It is one company under two spellings of its corporate form — the kind of gap only the register shows.

New Zealand’s Position Right Now

New Zealand’s own timetable is separate. The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 has applied since 1 May 2026 and its Regulations since 3 July 2026, yet the Department of Internal Affairs has issued no licences, and the first licensed operators are not expected before 2027.

Unregulated is the operative word. Transitional offshore sites are not bound by Parts 2 to 4 of the 2026 Regulations, so nothing at Katsubet answers to the new player-protection standards, and the DIA says outright that offshore play carries no guarantee of player safety.

Operators without a New Zealand licence must also leave the market from 1 December 2026, which caps how long today’s arrangement can run. A Curaçao licence supervises the company in Willemstad; it is not a government authorisation to serve New Zealanders, no matter how a footer phrases it.

The operator’s own terms list roughly 190 restricted territories, and New Zealand is not one of them. That absence is the clearest operator-side evidence that a New Zealander is an accepted customer, not a tolerated one.

Winnings are not taxed by Inland Revenue; the duty burden sits on the operator. No accredited testing laboratory certificate — eCOGRA, iTech Labs or GLI — turned up for Katsubet in any source checked here.

Takeaway: the licence is real and traceable, but it sits under assessment in Curaçao, and no operator will hold a New Zealand licence before 2027.

Games and Software Providers

Katsubet’s lobby draws games from software providers across pokies, instant-win games, table games, live dealer games and a mobile casino category. The operator advertises “over 7,000” titles from more than 50 suppliers, though its own pages disagree on the exact count, so treat that figure as a marketing claim rather than a counted catalogue.

Pokies and Video Slots

Pokies make up the largest share of the Katsubet lobby, drawing on studios including Pragmatic Play, Evolution, NetEnt, Yggdrasil, Red Tiger Gaming, BGaming, Betsoft, Platipus, Microgaming, Endorphina and Amatic, all named directly on the operator’s own site. Only three titles carry a confirmed, operator-stated role:

• Aloha King Elvis anchors the first welcome bonus, and is the one title here with a developer-published return figure of 94.98%.
• Wild Cash x9990 anchors the second welcome bonus.
• Elvis Frog in Vegas anchors the crypto free-spins promotion.

BGaming states that 94.98% directly rather than shipping several configurations for operators to choose between. That single confirmed figure stands in for a lobby-wide return rate no source could verify.

Live Casino Games

Roulette, blackjack and baccarat also run as live dealer games, dealt on camera from a studio rather than generated by a random number engine. Katsubet does not publish which studio supplies its live tables. This category contributes nothing towards welcome-bonus wagering, so a customer chasing the bonus should treat live casino as a separate spend rather than a way to clear it.

Table Games and RNG Titles

Alongside the live studio, Katsubet runs RNG-based table games — blackjack, roulette and similar titles generated by the game engine rather than a dealer. These count 5% towards wagering under the same terms that give live games 0%, so they clear a bonus far more slowly than a pokie does.

Takeaway: the named suppliers and the two confirmed bonus titles are checkable; the “7,000-plus games” figure is an operator claim no outside source confirms.

Welcome Bonus and Weekly Promotions

The headline offer is a 100% first-deposit match up to NZ$400 plus 100 free spins on Aloha King Elvis, a slot from BGaming. A second deposit adds a 75% match up to NZ$600 plus another 100 spins. Both caps are published in NZ$ rather than converted from a euro figure, which is unusual for an offshore site.

Wagering Terms behind the Welcome Package

Wagering requirement	35x (base not stated by the operator)
Maximum bet with an active bonus	€1
Maximum bet in ordinary slot play	€50
Bonus expiry	14 days
Game weighting	Slots 100%, other games 5%, live games 0%
Maximum cashout, general bonus	10x the bonus amount
Maximum cashout, free spins	€100 unless stated otherwise

The wagering multiplier matters more than the headline figure. Clearing the NZ$400 bonus at 35x means turning over NZ$14,000 in qualifying slot bets before the bonus balance can be withdrawn.

Applied to Aloha King Elvis, whose developer publishes a return-to-player figure of 94.98%, that turnover carries an expected house take of roughly NZ$700 — more than the bonus that triggered the requirement. This illustrates how the mechanics work; it is not a forecast of any individual result.

The €1 maximum bet while a bonus is active sits far below the €50 a player can otherwise stake on slots. That fifty-fold gap is the single most common way a welcome bonus gets voided: a customer who keeps betting at the level the site normally allows breaks the bonus terms without meaning to.

Live dealer games count 0% towards wagering, so the live library does nothing to clear the welcome package, even though it is one of the site’s headline categories.

The Weekly Promotional Calendar

Beyond the welcome offers, the promotional calendar runs weekday reload matches, tiered free-spin drops on set deposit amounts, and loot-box-style spin bundles. A weekend offer arrives by email, a daily cashback tier pays 5–10% on the previous day’s losses, and a separate weekly free-spins promotion applies to crypto deposits.

Third and fourth-deposit offers appear on the operator’s promotions page and its bonus-terms page with different match caps, so a customer comparing the two pages will see the figures disagree. The bonus-terms page is the more detailed of the two, and the figures above come from it.

Takeaway: the NZ$400 figure is real, but the 35x wagering and the €1 bonus bet limit set its real value, not the headline number.

Payment Methods and Withdrawal Speed

Katsubet lists NZ$ as a genuine account currency, alongside EUR, USD, AUD, CAD, NOK, PLN and ten cryptocurrencies, so a player’s balance and the welcome bonus caps both sit in NZ$ without a conversion step. Deposits and withdrawals, though, run through a shorter list of methods than most New Zealanders expect.

Deposit and Withdrawal Methods

Method	Direction	Fee	Typical speed	Limits
Visa / Mastercard / Maestro	Deposit and withdrawal	2.5%	Instant	$/€10–$/€4,000
ecoPayz	Deposit and withdrawal	Free	0–24h deposit, instant withdrawal	$/€10–$/€4,000
Neosurf, Purplepay, iDebit	Deposit only	Free	Instant to 24h	$/€10–$/€4,000
Bank transfer	Withdrawal only	2.5%	0–5 days	From €200, up to €4,000
Bitcoin / Litecoin	Deposit and withdrawal	Small network fee	Instant	Unlimited deposit
Tether (USDT)	Deposit and withdrawal	1 USDT deposit fee	Instant	5 USDT min

Payment Methods New Zealand Players Will Not Find

Several familiar methods New Zealanders search for by name are absent from that list. POLi, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Prezzy Card, Flexepin and paysafecard all sit outside Katsubet’s payment page. That gap is not the operator lagging behind: POLi’s own terms exclude unlicensed gaming services, and the Prezzy Card issuer prohibits gambling outright.

PayPal accepts gambling merchants only where the activity is licensed. In practice, a customer from New Zealand is left with a debit card, ecoPayz, Neosurf for deposits, or crypto.

Bank transfer is a withdrawal-only method with a €200 minimum, ten times the general €20 withdrawal minimum that applies to card and e-wallet payouts. That makes it the wrong choice for a small withdrawal, even though it is one of the few methods tied directly to a bank account.

New Zealand’s own bank clearing runs in batches rather than in real time, so a “0–5 days” transfer routinely spans a weekend delay rather than landing on day one.

Account-wide withdrawal limits sit at €10,000 a week and €40,000 a month, with room for higher limits at senior VIP levels. Katsubet’s FAQ states that a verified account is generally paid “instantly”, with slower cases depending on the method chosen — an operator claim rather than an independently measured payout time.

Identity verification is not required to register or deposit. The terms reserve the right to request it “before any payment”, at the casino’s discretion, with document review described as taking about 24 hours. That makes “no verification casino” the wrong way to describe Katsubet: verification is deferred to the withdrawal stage, not removed.

Takeaway: NZD deposits and withdrawals work through cards, ecoPayz and crypto; the payment methods New Zealanders usually ask for by name are absent because the providers themselves exclude this kind of merchant.

Account, Support, Mobile Play and VIP Levels

Registration at Katsubet asks for the standard account details and an initial deposit. The operator’s FAQ states a minimum top-up of $10 or the equivalent, half the €20 a customer actually needs to qualify for the first welcome bonus. Identity verification is not part of sign-up itself; it arrives, at the operator’s discretion, once a withdrawal is requested.

Customer support runs 24/7 through live chat and email; no phone line and no New Zealand-specific contact point appear on the operator’s site. Katsubet publishes a “Mobile Casino” game category and describes the site as playable on a phone or tablet browser. No dedicated iOS or Android app is documented anywhere on its own pages, so mobile play means the browser site rather than a downloaded application.

Loyalty runs through an eight-level VIP scheme, from Jade Talisman up to Kabuto, crediting one status point for each €50 wagered on pokies, instant games, card games and poker. Lower tiers hand out free spins and small cash bonuses, a personal VIP host arrives at level five, and wagering on level rewards falls from 30x near the bottom to none at the top.

Kabuto itself needs 200,000 points, roughly €10 million of qualifying turnover at that rate, which says plainly who the scheme is built for.

A few account clauses are worth knowing before they become a surprise. An account inactive for twelve consecutive months is charged a €10 monthly administration fee, or the remaining balance if it is smaller. A customer who cannot be reached for 180 days after a withdrawal request risks account closure and forfeited funds.

Running more than one account can lead to termination and payout cancellation at the casino’s sole discretion. Katsubet’s own terms also place responsibility for checking local gambling law on the customer, stating explicitly that it is their job to confirm the rules of their own jurisdiction.

Takeaway: the sign-up and deposit steps are quick, but the account terms — dormancy fees, the 180-day contact rule and discretionary KYC — matter more than the front-end experience once a payout is on the line.

Responsible Gambling Tools and New Zealand Help Services

Limit tools sit inside the player account at Katsubet: a deposit limit, a loss limit and a wager limit, each set for a day, a week or a month. A cooling-off period blocks deposits and promotional offers for a chosen span while still allowing withdrawals. Self-exclusion goes further and disables the account outright, but it is arranged by emailing support rather than switched on in the account, and it covers this one site.

Two gaps matter more to a New Zealander than the tools do. Katsubet accepts customers from age 18, while the minimum age for a New Zealand land-based casino is 20, so the site admits players SkyCity Auckland would turn away. And the services its responsible-gaming page names — Gamblers Anonymous, GamCare and Gambling Therapy — are British and international bodies. No New Zealand service appears anywhere on the operator’s pages.

The local ones are worth knowing independently of any site. Gambling Helpline Aotearoa is free and answers around the clock on 0800 654 655; safergambling.org.nz collects self-help tools; and Salvation Army Oasis provides counselling. Multi-venue exclusion, coordinated through Oasis, applies to land-based venues rather than websites, and the centralised online exclusion register, which regulations must provide for by 1 December 2027, still has no launch date.

Takeaway: the limit tools work, but exclusion here depends on the operator answering an email, and the help line a New Zealander actually needs is one the site never names.

Pros and Cons

Weighed against what the register, the bonus terms and the payments page show, the balance comes down to checkable points rather than impressions. These are the pros:

• Real, traceable licence. The Curaçao Gaming Authority licence resolves to a named register row that a player can open and read.
• Genuine NZ$ accounts. Balances and the first two welcome bonus caps are set in NZ$, with no conversion needed.
• Broad supplier roster. Named studios include Pragmatic Play, Evolution, NetEnt and BGaming, covering pokies, live dealer and table games.
• Crypto flexibility. Bitcoin, Litecoin and USDT deposit and withdraw instantly with no fixed maximum on deposits.

And these are the cons:

• No NZ-specific payment method. POLi, Prezzy Card and PayPal are all absent, leaving cards, ecoPayz and crypto as the practical options.
• Wagering that erases most of the bonus value. A 35x requirement on the welcome bonus, at a €1 bonus-bet cap, carries an expected cost close to the bonus itself.
• No New Zealand help line named. The responsible-gambling page lists British and international services only, not Gambling Helpline Aotearoa.
• Register status under review. The licence’s own register row shows “Assessment in progress”, a Curaçao-wide condition rather than a resolved status.

Takeaway: Katsubet suits a customer already comfortable with card or crypto deposits who reads the wagering terms before opting in. It suits nobody looking for a familiar New Zealand payment method or a locally regulated site, because neither exists here yet.

Verdict

This Katsubet Casino review comes down to five points, in order of weight. The licence is real and traceable to a specific Curaçao register row, but its status is under assessment, and it is not, and cannot yet be, a New Zealand licence.

The NZ$400 welcome bonus is genuine, but its 35x wagering and €1 bonus-bet cap consume most of its value. NZD deposits and withdrawals work, but only through cards, ecoPayz and crypto, not the payment brands New Zealanders usually expect. Verification is deferred to the first withdrawal rather than absent, and every help service the site names sits offshore too.

The practical next step is a short one: open the operator’s current terms and the Curaçao Gaming Authority register before depositing, and read the register row rather than the footer. Scores55 Tech’s other storefront, 7Bit Casino, sits on the same licence row and the same company registration, so a customer weighing Katsubet against it is really weighing one operator’s two names, not two independent options.

Frequently Asked Questions