New Zealand’s best new online pokies in April 2024

We don’t just want new pokies games, we also want a good range of categories and types. A site that offers your basic video pokies won’t score as high as one that offers a good mix of progressive jackpot slots, Megaways, theme varieties and so forth.

This is why we rate sites like Betway casino so highly. Not only is their new pokies section continuously updated, but it’s also categorised by new progressive jackpots, Megaways, themes and more. This makes for a much better gambling experience than, say, at Royal Vegas in this respect. The latter offers neither a new pokies online section nor a range of game types available.

The real jackpot is finding a new slots site with a no deposit free spins offer so you can test out the new titles with no financial commitment. Casinos with this generous welcome bonus get the very highest scores of all from our experts.

In the absence of no deposit casino welcome bonuses, we give the best scores to those sites that combine a match deposit bonus with a good free spins offer, like the Winawin welcome bonus consisting of 1,800 free spins and up to NZ$6,825 in bonus money.

We also take a look at terms like wagering requirements, so Revolution casino site is as highly-rated as Winawin, even though it offers less free spins as part of the welcome package. This is because its wagering requirements are 40x, while Winawin’s are 50x.

What’s more exciting than playing the latest slots online? Pitting your skills against that of other players in a tournament, of course. We love us a good tournament because it really lets us get immersed into a new game, while delivering potentially massive prize pools, of course.

Any trusted site that regularly adds new online pokies to its tournaments gets our vote. This is why we rate Spinz, which has daily tournaments with a pokie list that includes the latest titles, scores better than Merkur, which only hosts Drops & Wins with a limited selection of pokies.

Fact: even when playing new pokies games, we’ve always got an eye on the prize. And we’d better be able to get our hands on those winnings without any hassle, or the casino can wave goodbye to a high score from us.

NZ online sites like Winawin offer an average payout period of between three to five days. But we prefer sites that do their best to beat this, such as Lucky Dreams, which transfers the winnings to your account within 24 hours.

We also want to make sure that a site has reasonable payout rates. We’re used to seeing the best NZ online casinos like Betway and Spinz exceeding 97%. Wildz, at just under 98%, scores even higher.

We play to relax, and we want the experience to be as smooth as possible, whether we’re playing new pokies or classics. This is where we gauge the user-friendliness and overall design of a new slots site, to understand how easy it is to find the new games, to browse them and to generally enjoy playing at the casino.

One of our favourites in this respect is Revolution Casino, where we find all pokies nicely categorised and a cool design that makes it easy to get inspired. The super games filter also helps, we have to say. By contrast, Merkur could definitely learn a thing or two from here, with no helpful categories or filtering available.

Let’s start with the obvious. Any new pokies are going to be mobile compatible, as the vast majority of providers use HTML5 technology. This ensures that no matter what device you’re playing from, the slot will adjust to your screen size.

However, we also look at the mobile compatibility of the site itself. We love to see casinos like LeoVegas and Betway, which offer dedicated apps that automatically feature all the latest mobile pokies. Both apps are award-winning and enjoy ratings over 4.5 on Google Play and Apple Store.