Our Authors & Reviewers: The People Behind 12Steps.nz

Aria spent four years dealing blackjack and roulette on an Auckland casino floor before moving into online-casino reviewing in 2018. She owns our casino, pokies, live-casino, fast-payout and no-deposit guides. Aria runs every payout test herself — depositing in NZD, playing, and timing the withdrawal to the minute — and she reads the bonus fine print so you don't have to. She's a stickler for RTP transparency and has a low tolerance for sites that bury withdrawal caps in their terms.

Covers: online casinos, pokies, live casino, fast payouts, no-deposit bonuses, minimum-deposit casinos.

Tama worked as a form analyst before turning to writing, and he still can't watch a rugby test without a bet slip open. He covers our sports-betting guides with a specialist eye on the things Kiwis actually bet — rugby union, harness and thoroughbred racing, league and cricket — and he's blunt about how offshore bookmakers stack up against the TAB. If a bookie's live-betting suspends every time there's a try coming, Tama will have noticed.

Covers: sports betting, rugby, horse & harness racing, cricket, live betting, betting apps, free bets.

Nate has been moving money on-chain since 2017 and knows the difference between a casino that "supports crypto" and one that actually settles a USDT withdrawal in ninety seconds. He owns our crypto-casino guides, walks Kiwis through buying and storing coins safely, and is refreshingly honest about the KYC and tax realities that other crypto-gambling sites skip. He also maintains our payments coverage — including flagging dead methods like POLi that competitors still list.

Covers: crypto casinos, Bitcoin, no-KYC, Ethereum, USDT, instant withdrawals.