Online gambling is illegal in South Africa says Supreme Court

[brendonml]

R10 million rand fine and or 10 years in prison for playing slots.
I loll'ed.

[ToxicBunny]

Here's the thing that I don't understand: so, Pigg's Peak, which is not within the jurisdiction of the South African law, is blocking South African on-line gamblers just because they are within the jurisdiction of the South African law? What on earth compells them to give a flying fornication through a rolling doughnut? To be NICE because the SA government said "pretty please"? Surely it's the responsibility of the South African citizens to stay within the laws of their own country? Are we now going to tell the EU lottery to stop sending spam to our SA citizens because it's illegal for our poor people to play? Pffft. Talk about unenforcable laws.

Juice

Helps if you know the actual company behind it all.....esp when it is plastered on the Piggs Peak home page.

Piggs Peak online casino is run by Casino Enterprises PTY (Ltd) which is an SA based company from what I can see.

[Rah_Skill]

I bet that it is also illegal to allow minors to gamble, yet any minor with a cell phone can do so and is encouraged to do so by everyone from the radio stations, to shops, to the cell phone companies.

P.S. If you accept my bet above, you may be liable for 10 years imprisonment

We might as well ban alcohol, car, insurance and ads for anything else that requires you to be 18.

Hurry, Twhitehead, MW3 is almost released and it's yet to be banned!

[n00berizer]

You can just tunnel via another country in order to circumvent this.

[luxe]

Can you tunnel your Credit Card when you attempt to deposit funds to play?

[n00berizer]

Can you tunnel your Credit Card when you attempt to deposit funds to play?

Hell yea, just put it in PayPal and pay from there.

[nalu]

+1. This has very little to do with the winnings of the players, but the tax that needs to be paid by the casino. Piggs Peak, Silversands, etc, operate online casino's outside of South African borders and are thus not liable to pay tax to the Government. All the money they make leaves the country and that is totally unacceptable since that money could be used for squandering elsewhere by Government entities.

Best thing I have ever read

[TirNaNog]

Hell yea, just put it in PayPal and pay from there.

Can I tunnel my winnings into a foreign bank account if I win this?

[TirNaNog]

Here's my Q

As a South African, can I gamble online when I'm visiting the UK?

[krycor]

ok.. so there goes that job. **** graduating is turning out to be a nightmare with no escape

[Shake&Bake]

Simply the government wanting to tax operators whom have no way to pay the guavamint.

Stupid ruling! If goverment had done their work since 2008, applications would've been made.

Paypal account and off you go to European sites.

[Grep]

/me fires up partypoker via vpn. um, now what? Oh right, winnings ... I don't win, so that's fine

[Pixual]

I don't like gambling but I like the SA government even less. Fück them and their stupid greed.

[SquirellyWrath]

Here's the thing that I don't understand: so, Pigg's Peak, which is not within the jurisdiction of the South African law, is blocking South African on-line gamblers just because they are within the jurisdiction of the South African law? What on earth compells them to give a flying fornication through a rolling doughnut? To be NICE because the SA government said "pretty please"? Surely it's the responsibility of the South African citizens to stay within the laws of their own country? Are we now going to tell the EU lottery to stop sending spam to our SA citizens because it's illegal for our poor people to play? Pffft. Talk about unenforcable laws.

Juice

They'll just enforce it via the banks. I.e go to Standard Bank and say that if they transfer money to Piggs they are engaging in an illegal activity, banks will have no option but to comply. Piggs probably figures its easy just to comply now than to risk struggling to get a license in the future.

From the comments I don't think people know how this actually started. Piggs started advertising their casino on SA television. The Gambling committee then got SABC (or whoever) to stop broadcasting these adverts as it was in contravention of the Gambling Act (or something not 100% on this). Piggs then instituted the original claim to get their adverts re-instated. This lead to the original decision that their business was illegal, which Piggs then appealed to the Supreme Court. This has very little with the government wanting to get their hands on Piggs profits, until Piggs briught it to their attention.

I get the feeling Piggs is pretty pissed with the legal team who thought they could win the original action.

[nanonyous]

Here's the thing that I don't understand: so, Pigg's Peak, which is not within the jurisdiction of the South African law, is blocking South African on-line gamblers just because they are within the jurisdiction of the South African law? What on earth compells them to give a flying fornication through a rolling doughnut? To be NICE because the SA government said "pretty please"? Surely it's the responsibility of the South African citizens to stay within the laws of their own country? Are we now going to tell the EU lottery to stop sending spam to our SA citizens because it's illegal for our poor people to play? Pffft. Talk about unenforcable laws.

Juice

Piggs Peak catered almost exclusively to South Africans. In technical terms they may have been an international online casino, but their target market was South Africans. By doing so but not being a company registered and operating from South Africa, they were able to avoid South African taxes, and I'd not be surprised if they were commiting some degree of fraud and getting away with it, too.

read: online gambling, with the fact that the entire system could be rigged such that the house wins with better 'odds' than even 'real' casinos can do, can potentially be far more profitable than a real casino. Considering there is no physical casino establishment to maintain, the operating costs can also be significantly lower while, in relative terms, the profits can be higher than a physical casino.

Anyway, I don't like this law either. So the companies running the operations are being banned on the basis of not operating from within South Africa and thus being able to avoid taxes? Have them move their systems and operations to South Africa! You don't see the government banning tourism because other countries are profiting from South Africans heading there to spend their money. You don't see the government banning imports of goods from foreign countries that don't go through a South African company. You don't see the government banning any technology developed by another country and sold to South African companies or individuals.