Background
Hemi has spent over a decade covering NZ-facing online operators, with a working focus on iGaming compliance and player-protection research. His particular interest is offshore-licensing analysis — the gap between what a licence requires on paper and how the operator actually behaves when a player files a complaint or asks for a withdrawal. Before joining SoftRock NZ, he wrote for NZ trade and consumer-focused outlets covering gambling, fintech and consumer protection, with regular reporting on the Gambling Act 2003 in practice, bank-level gambling blocks at the major NZ banks, the live status of POLi as a deposit rail, and the ongoing licensing debate between MGA, Gibraltar and Curaçao. He's been quoted on NZ gambling regulation, offshore-casino dispute resolution and payment-method security for online play. The lens is consistent: Kiwi players first; operator marketing claims tested against operator behaviour; the maths of a bonus explained before the headline.
Areas of focus
NZ player protection →
Reviewing where Kiwi players are most exposed and how to mitigate — deposit limits, bank-level gambling blocks, self-exclusion routes.
Offshore licensing analysis →
What an MGA, Gibraltar or Curaçao licence actually buys you in a dispute — and what it doesn't.
Payment-method security →
Banking rails, chargeback rights for Kiwi card users, and the AML/KYC reality of cashing out from an offshore operator.
Editorial principles
- Honest about wagering math, even when it makes a bonus look worse. A 100% match at 50× wagering on bonus + deposit is not a "boosted bankroll"; it's a NZ$30,000 turnover requirement. We say so.
- Honest about licensing reality, even when it makes a recommendation harder. Most operators we cover are Curaçao-licensed. That's not a dealbreaker — but it's not the same as MGA, and we won't pretend it is.
- Public methodology, applied identically across operators. The rubric at /methodology/ is the gate. No operator gets a softer scoring scheme for being a partner.
- Corrections published within 7 days of confirmation. When we get something wrong, the fix goes up promptly and the change is noted at the bottom of the affected page.
Contact
Direct editorial contact: [email protected]. For general editorial and corrections, the team inbox is [email protected]. See the contact page for press, tip-offs and the message form.
Articles by Hemi
- Online Pokies NZ — Honest Reviews for Kiwi Players
- Best Online Pokies NZ — the ranked top-10
- Real Money Pokies NZ — banking deep-dive
- Online Casinos NZ — broader comparison
- Responsible Gambling — tools and helplines
- Methodology — the 100-point rubric
Last reviewed: 16 June 2026 · Editor: Hemi Walker · How we rate