Gambling in the Cook Islands: Laws and Online Casinos

Published by Casino News Daily editorial teamReviewed byFilip RadulovicOur editorial approach

The Cook Islands, a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand, regulates gambling through a small and largely historic body of law. The principal statute is the Gaming Act 1967, amended several times between 1973 and 2007, which allows lotteries, housie (bingo) and similar activities under permits, licences, ministerial exemptions or government agreements. There is no gambling regulator in the modern sense: the Act is administered by the Cook Islands Police, with ministerial powers over exemptions and lottery agreements. Casinos are prohibited, according to the 2018 anti-money-laundering evaluation of the country, and no licensing regime for online casinos or remote betting has been identified. New Zealand’s gambling legislation, including its new online casino licensing law, does not extend to the Cook Islands, whose own parliament makes its laws.

Key points

The Gaming Act 1967 (No. 12 of 1967) remains the core gambling statute. Recorded amendments date from 1973, 1989, 1991–92, 1997 and 2007.
Casinos are prohibited in the Cook Islands, according to the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering’s 2018 mutual evaluation report.
A 1991–92 amendment allows the government to make agreements for instant lotteries and pool betting schemes, including schemes run lawfully under another jurisdiction’s law.
No legislation licensing online casinos, online sports betting or remote gambling operators was found, and the Financial Supervisory Commission does not list gambling among the sectors it licenses.
Laws passed by New Zealand’s Parliament do not apply in the Cook Islands unless the Cook Islands requests and consents, so New Zealand’s Online Casino Gambling Act does not by itself cover Cook Islands residents.
There is no dedicated national problem-gambling service or self-exclusion register; general mental health and addiction support is provided by the Ministry of Health (Te Marae Ora) and the NGO Te Kainga O Pa Taunga.

Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.

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Historical development

The Cook Islands’ gambling law reflects its constitutional history. The islands were administered by New Zealand until self-government took effect at 10.30 pm on 4 August 1965 under the Cook Islands Constitution Act 1964, a New Zealand statute. The Gaming Act 1967 was passed by the Cook Islands legislature two years later.

The main changes since then have concerned lotteries. A 1973 amendment is recorded in the official finding list of Cook Islands legislation, which also lists a Totalizator Act 1973 dealing with totalisator (pool) betting. In 1989 the Gaming Amendment Act 1989 gave the responsible Minister a broad power to exempt any person or body from the Act. In April 1992 Parliament passed the Gaming (Tattersalls) Amendment Act 1991–92. Its operative provisions do not name any operator; they created a legal basis for the government to authorise instant lotteries and pool betting schemes, including pool betting schemes conducted lawfully under the law of another state or territory.

The Gaming Amendment Act 1997 later revised the lottery permit provisions and replaced the rules on housie. The finding list records a further amendment in 2007, whose text could not be located on the public legislation databases at the time of review.

Academic work has examined offshore gambling in Pacific tax havens: a 2003 article in Pacific Studies by Anthony van Fossen treated the Cook Islands as one of four case studies of the uneven development of offshore gambling in Oceania, alongside Vanuatu, Norfolk Island and Palau. However, no Cook Islands statute licensing internet gambling was found, and the country’s offshore financial sector developed around banking, insurance, trusts and company registration rather than gaming.

Legal framework

Checking gambling legislation and licensing The legal framework consists of the Gaming Act 1967 and its amendments, a small number of related statutes, and the constitutional rules that separate Cook Islands law from New Zealand law. The Cook Islands legislation finding list, which brings the list of Acts in force up to date as at 1 March 2016, records the Gaming Act 1967 as Act No. 12 of 1967, amended in 1973, 1989, 1991–92, 1997 and 2007. No separate “Gambling Act” or “Gaming and Betting Act” appears among the Acts in force, and none enacted since 2016 was found.

The Gaming Act 1967 and its amendments

The consolidated text of the 1967 Act could not be retrieved from the Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII) during this review, so its general prohibitions and offence provisions are not summarised here. The amending Acts, which are available, show the main features of the scheme:

Ministerial exemptions (1989). Section 25A, inserted in 1989, allows the Minister to exempt any person or body from any provision of the Act, “notwithstanding the provisions of any enactment or any rule of law to the contrary”. The Minister may attach conditions, vary, suspend or revoke an exemption after giving the holder a chance to show cause, and appoint inspectors to enforce the conditions. The Minister is not required to act judicially and the decision is final.
Instant lotteries and pool betting (1991–92). New sections 20A to 20E define an instant lottery (a ticket or other thing that reveals immediately whether a prize has been won) and a pool betting scheme (betting at non-fixed odds where prizes depend on total stakes). Small pools of no more than 100 people and total stakes of up to $500 are excluded. Under section 20C the Minister may sign agreements on behalf of the government authorising a person or body to conduct such schemes, may grant exclusive rights, and may allow the government itself to run instant lotteries. A pool betting scheme run lawfully in another jurisdiction requires an arrangement with that jurisdiction’s responsible Minister, and money remitted under it goes to non-profit or charitable organisations approved by Cabinet.
Offences under agreements. Under section 20E, knowingly contravening the conditions of such an agreement is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, with up to six months’ imprisonment for a second offence.
Lottery permits and housie (1997). The 1997 Act amended the permit and licence provisions for lotteries in section 16 (raising figures in that section from fifty to two hundred and from twenty to eighty; the amending text does not say what these figures measure). It also replaced section 21 so that an organisation may apply in writing to conduct housie, with a licence granted by the Commissioner of Police or another person authorised by the Minister, subject to conditions.

All three amending Acts state that they are administered by the Police.

Criminal law

The Crimes Act 1969 is the Cook Islands’ general criminal code. The text of the Act as enacted, published on PacLII, contains no provisions on gambling, gaming houses, lotteries or betting, which indicates that gambling offences are found in the Gaming Act rather than in the criminal code.

The relationship with New Zealand

Cook Islanders hold New Zealand citizenship, and the two countries share the King as head of state, but the Cook Islands conducts its own affairs, according to the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Article 46(1) of the Constitution provides that no Act of the New Zealand Parliament passed on or after Constitution Day extends to the Cook Islands unless the Cook Islands Government has requested and consented to it and the Act expressly says so. New Zealand’s Gambling Act 2003 and its 2026 online casino law are therefore not part of Cook Islands law. Products of New Zealand’s statutory operators, such as the New Zealand TAB or Lotto New Zealand, are governed in New Zealand by New Zealand law. No source was found confirming that either is sold in the Cook Islands.

Regulator and licensing model

The Cook Islands does not have a dedicated gambling regulator, licensing authority or published register of gambling licences. The model is best described as restrictive with limited, permit-based exceptions. Gaming for profit is generally restricted. Specific activities, chiefly lotteries, raffles and housie run for community purposes, are allowed by permit or licence. Larger lottery schemes may be authorised by ministerial agreement, and the Minister may exempt any person or body from the Act.

The administrative roles under the amending Acts are as follows:

The Minister responsible for the Act may grant exemptions under section 25A and sign agreements for instant lotteries and pool betting schemes under section 20C. A certificate signed by the Minister is evidence of an exemption or authorisation in legal proceedings (section 20D).
The Commissioner of Police, or another person authorised by the Minister, licenses housie under section 21 as replaced in 1997.
Cabinet approves the non-profit or charitable organisations that receive funds remitted under cross-border lottery arrangements.

Casinos are not part of the model. The Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) mutual evaluation report of September 2018, based on an on-site visit from 20 November to 1 December 2017, states plainly: “Casinos are prohibited in the Cook Islands.” The report does not identify the statutory provision behind the prohibition. It does refer to “Lotto agencies” as one of the lower-risk sectors examined in a 2017 secondary review of money-laundering risk, which indicates that lottery retailing existed at that time. No official figures on the number of permits, licences or agreements in force were found.

Gaming machines (“pokies”) are not mentioned in the amending Acts, and no evidence was found of a licensing regime for gaming machine venues of the kind that exists in New Zealand. Whether the 1967 Act’s general provisions cover such machines could not be confirmed without the consolidated text.

Online gambling and enforcement

Online casino games on mobile devices No Cook Islands statute licenses or expressly regulates online casino games, online poker or remote sports betting. The Gaming Act predates the internet, and none of the available amendments refers to remote, interactive or internet gambling. The 1991–92 amendment allows authorised lottery and pool betting schemes, including foreign ones, but only through a ministerial agreement. It is not a general licence for online operators.

The offshore financial sector is supervised by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), which began operating on 1 July 2003. The FSC licenses banks, insurers, money-changing and remittance businesses and trustee companies, and keeps the registry for international companies, limited liability companies, international trusts, partnerships and foundations. Its published remit does not include gambling, and no proposal to add online gaming licences to the offshore sector was found in official or news sources for 2023–2026.

No mechanism for blocking unlicensed gambling websites, restricting payments to offshore operators or regulating online gambling advertising was identified. In practice, residents with internet access can reach foreign gambling sites that are licensed elsewhere or not licensed at all. Those operators are not authorised or supervised in the Cook Islands, and a dispute with them cannot be taken to any Cook Islands authority.

For anti-money-laundering purposes, the Financial Transactions Reporting Act 2017 defines reporting institutions as licensed financial institutions, persons carrying out prescribed “specified activities” and other prescribed persons. The Act itself does not mention casinos, gambling or lotteries. The Financial Intelligence Unit, which sits within the FSC, is the anti-money-laundering supervisor for all reporting institutions, according to the APG report.

Position of players

The legal position of individual players is not fully clear from the sources that could be verified. The 1967 Act’s provisions on participating in unlawful gaming could not be reviewed, so it cannot be stated whether a person who takes part in an unlicensed game commits an offence. The available amendments create offences for persons “concerned in” an authorised lottery or pool betting scheme who knowingly break its conditions; these are aimed at organisers, not at ticket buyers.

No Cook Islands provision was found that makes it an offence for a resident to gamble with an online operator based abroad, and no record was found of any prosecution or fine of a player for doing so. That absence of evidence should not be read as confirmation that such play is lawful. It means that the law does not address online gambling directly, and that a player using an offshore site has no local regulator, no local dispute process and no recourse under Cook Islands consumer law against a foreign operator.

Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens and many live in or travel to New Zealand. While in New Zealand, they are subject to New Zealand law, including the licensing regime for online casino gambling described below.

Taxation

No gambling-specific tax on operators or players was identified in Cook Islands legislation. The distribution of lottery proceeds is handled through the terms of permits and agreements rather than a gaming duty: under section 20C, money remitted under an arrangement with another jurisdiction’s lottery goes to non-profit or charitable organisations approved by Cabinet.

The tax treatment of gambling winnings for individuals is not addressed in the sources reviewed. Players with substantial winnings, particularly from foreign operators, should seek advice from the Cook Islands tax authorities.

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

The Cook Islands has no statutory self-exclusion scheme, no national gambling helpline and no published harm-minimisation code for gambling operators. The protections that exist come from the conditions the Minister or the Police may attach to permits, licences and exemptions, and from the fact that casinos and gaming machine venues are not part of the market.

General support is available through health services rather than through a gambling-specific body:

Te Marae Ora Cook Islands Ministry of Health runs a mental health team, supplemented by visiting specialists, and lists a mental health contact number, 25664, on its mental health page. The page does not mention gambling.
Te Kainga O Pa Taunga, a community mental health NGO set up in 2004 that has opened a second centre on Aitutaki, provides counselling, psychosocial rehabilitation and an alcohol and drugs support group, according to a Cook Islands News report from October 2024. No gambling-specific programme was mentioned.
New Zealand services. The New Zealand Gambling Helpline offers free 24-hour support by phone (0800 654 655), text (8006) and web chat, including a specialist Pasifika Gambling Helpline. It describes itself as a national service for New Zealand, so the freephone and text numbers may not work from the Cook Islands; web chat may be the more practical route.

Research in New Zealand has drawn attention to gambling harm among Pacific communities. A study reported by RNZ and republished by Cook Islands News in March 2022 found that online video gaming acted as a gateway to problem gambling for Pasifika youth in New Zealand, based on interviews with 75 young people. General guidance on keeping gambling under control is available in our responsible gambling guide.

Recent and upcoming developments

No reform of gambling law identified (2023–2026). No bill to replace or modernise the Gaming Act 1967, and no proposal to license online gambling, was found in official or news sources during this period.
New Zealand’s online casino regime (2026). New Zealand’s Online Casino Gambling Bill passed its third reading on 23 April 2026, according to law firm Russell McVeagh, with up to 15 licences to be awarded and a prohibition on unlicensed operation and advertising in New Zealand from 1 December 2026. The Department of Internal Affairs says the regime is being phased in through expressions of interest, an auction and assessment of applications, and is not expected to be fully operational until 2027. Under Article 46 of the Cook Islands Constitution, the regime does not apply in the Cook Islands.
Strain in relations with New Zealand (2025). In June 2025 New Zealand paused NZ$18.2 million in development funding for 2025/26 after the Cook Islands signed a comprehensive strategic partnership with China without prior consultation, as reported by 1News. The dispute concerns the free association relationship generally, not gambling, but it is relevant to any future co-operation between the two countries on regulation.
Anti-money-laundering supervision. The APG’s 2018 evaluation remains the most recent full assessment found. It records that casinos are prohibited and lists lotto agencies among the lower-risk sectors reviewed in 2017.

Casino listings for players in the Cook Islands

The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that any operator is licensed or authorised in the Cook Islands, which has no licensing regime for online casinos and prohibits land-based casinos. The listings must not be read as an indication that playing is lawful or that any local protection applies. Readers should consider the legal position described above and the rules of the jurisdiction in which an operator claims to be licensed.

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Key points

Top Rated Online Casinos for Cook Islands

Historical development

Legal framework

The Gaming Act 1967 and its amendments

Criminal law

The relationship with New Zealand

Regulator and licensing model

Online gambling and enforcement

Position of players

Taxation

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Recent and upcoming developments

Casino listings for players in the Cook Islands

Related country guides

Sources and further reading

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