Cricket And Online Betting in New Zealand

New Zealand’s national and most popular summer sport, cricket has kept players, sports fans and punters on the islands busy for almost two centuries. Watching a match is a great way to spend a day in the sunshine, and betting on it is a brilliant way to maximise the thrill of the game.

While betting on the sport began informally all those years ago before the arrival of betting shops, it is now much easier with online bookmakers. Those that accept punters from New Zealand offer a range of bet types, so punters can place real money bets on the teams, players, matches, and tournaments of their choice, using little more than their computers.

Cricket Comes to New Zealand

The bat-and-ball sport of cricket was probably first brought to New Zealand by missionaries and other early settlers from Europe. The very first account of it being played came to us by way of Rev. Henry Williams’ diary, dated December 1832, which describes boys playing the game near Paihia, Horotutu Beach.

Three years later, Charles Darwin sailed into the Bay of Islands on the HMS Beagle as part of his journey around the earth. Darwin wrote of a game that was played by the son of a missionary based in Waimate North and freed Māori slaves.

It is unlikely that either Williams or Darwin went in for head-to-head or any other kind of betting, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the cricket matches reported on by the Wellington Spectator and the Examiner in 1842 and 1844 respectively saw more than a few pools.

Two decades later, New Zealand hosted its first international cricket team, Parr’s All England XI. In the 40 years that followed, 22 foreign teams toured the islands. The sport had become well and truly established.

Cricket in New Zealand Now

Cricket betting sites in New Zealand is in a fine and healthy state. Whoever was responsible for its introduction and development obviously did their jobs well.

The country has both men’s and women’s national teams, both of which have seen tremendous successes over the years. The sport is overseen by New Zealand Cricket, which not only operates the national teams, but organises Twenty20, Test tours, and One Day Internationals, as well as the domestic Plunket Shield, Ford Trophy, and HRV Cup events.

International competitions in which the country participates include the ICC Cricket World Cup, the ICC World Twenty20, and the ICC Champions Trophy.

Punters looking for domestic betting opportunities find plenty, with games and tournaments played regularly between teams such as Auckland Aces, Canterbury Wizards, Central District Stags, Northern Districts Knights, Otango Volts, and Wellington Firebirds.

Online Cricket Betting Markets

New Zealand’s online bookmakers provide enticing cricket markets, offering punters a varied range of different types of bets. The most common New Zealand online cricket markets are outright betting and exotic or prop betting markets.

The first market lets punters bet on overall match winners, on draws, and one in which a draw sees punters’ bets returned to them. The second market offers more interesting bet types, such as betting on the correct series score, a test’s run total, the team to score the highest number of sixes, the team to win the toss of the coin, and many others.