Online gambling banned in South Africa
The National Gambling Board (NGB) maintains that interactive gambling remains illegal in South Africa, except for online sports betting through licensed bookmakers.
A statement on its website is blunt: “The answer to whether online or interactive gambling is legal in South Africa is a simple and unequivocal no, with the exception of online sports betting.”
The NGB said Section 11 of the National Gambling Act states that “a person must not engage in or make available an interactive game except as authorised in terms of this Act or any other national law.”
However, operators like Hollywoodbets, Betway, SportingBet, Sunbet, and SuperSportBet argue that they are not offering interactive gambling.
Instead, they say patrons are betting on the outcomes of games, placing these products under bookmaker licences rather than casino-style interactive gambling.
This is the loophole at the heart of South Africa’s online gambling fight, because it has allowed casino-style games to be presented as betting contingencies.
The National Gambling Board reiterated its position in its 2024/25 annual report, published in September last year.
“There has been a growing trend among bookmakers to offer interactive gambling products under the guise of betting on contingencies, particularly through online casino-style games,” it said.
“While some operators claim that these offerings are permissible under the National Gambling Act, they clearly fall outside the scope of traditional contingency betting,” the NGB said.
It added that these products “enable punters to actively engage with and initiate gameplay”, which is what distinguishes them from ordinary sports betting.
The NGB said it “consistently communicated the illegality of these practices to the relevant provincial authorities”. However, it has failed to secure buy-in at the provincial level.
The annual report said the NGB had identified “significant gaps in regulatory adherence across provincial boards”, primarily due to contraventions of Section 11.
“The non-compliance is attributed to the failure of Provincial Licensing Authorities to effectively monitor their licensees’ activities, allowing some operators to engage in prohibited gambling activities,” it said.
Addicted to tax revenue
The reason provincial authorities have little incentive to clamp down is visible in the NGB’s own numbers. South Africans wagered R1.5 trillion in the 2024/25 financial year, up from R1.14 trillion the year before.
Gross gambling revenue increased 26.2% to R74.9 billion, with betting accounting for R52.3 billion, or about 70% of the total.
The NGB said betting growth drove the surge, with the sector expanding 45.7% in one year. Meanwhile, taxes and levies collected climbed by 20%, from R4.84 billion to R5.81 billion.
Of that R5.81 billion, 59% (R3.42 billion) was due to “betting”. The provinces that benefited most were the Western Cape, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and KwaZulu-Natal.
The Western Cape generated R23.1 billion in GGR, followed by Mpumalanga at R22.6 billion, Gauteng at R13.5 billion, and KwaZulu-Natal at R6.3 billion.
They also collected the most gambling taxes and levies. The Western Cape collected R1.74 billion, Mpumalanga R1.47 billion, Gauteng R1.16 billion, and KwaZulu-Natal R731 million.
“One of the economic benefits derived from the gambling industry is its ability to generate revenue for the government from taxes and levies collected,” the NGB stated.
It said the money collected may be spent on “economic development, infrastructure improvement, building schools, enhanced service delivery, etc.”
Online gambling extracts money from economy — experts
Several major South African companies have expressed alarm at the rise of online gambling, saying they have seen its impact on consumer spending.
Grocery retailers Shoprite and Pick n Pay have warned about the pressure online gambling is placing on consumers.
“People are spending money in a black hole that could have been spent on food,” said Shoprite Group CEO Pieter Engelbrecht.
“This is money that has been hoovered out of this economy in extraordinary amounts, and the people who are predominantly the victims are the ones who can least afford it,” said Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers.
“It’s down at the lower end of the market where people are battling to feed their families, never mind anything else. It’s just bizarre, and the quantum is absolutely massive.”
Fashion retailers TFG and Woolworths have raised similar concerns, while mobile operator MTN said that online gambling had also contributed to its muted prepaid mobile growth in South Africa.
The NGB and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) issued a statement in February warning that students were using financial aid to gamble online instead of supporting their education.
Economic expert Dr Frans Cronje has taken a hardline stance, arguing that all online gambling should be banned, whether illegal or licensed.
Despite holding liberal convictions and supporting free markets, Cronje said online betting was a complicated exception. He said he would ban online gambling in South Africa if he had the power.
Cronje said the people behind the online betting industry were evil, adding that he did not know how they could live with themselves.
“If you see some of the people who have lost their money and how desperate they become, you will understand why I say so,” he said.
“Betting breaks up families. Kids lose their parents. It leads to alcohol and drug abuse. It leads to domestic violence.”
Treasury’s plan to expand “Sin Taxes”
National Treasury has proposed a national online gambling tax to address the social harm caused by online betting and interactive gambling.
It proposed “a national tax of 20% on the gross gambling revenue of the online and interactive gambling industry.” Treasury said the tax would be in addition to current provincial gambling taxes.
“In instances where the local industry players are involved in interactive gambling, which is still illegal, they will also be subject to the proposed tax,” it said.
It said the tax could generate more than R10 billion in additional revenue, but added that this was not the main objective.
“The main objective of the reform would not be to raise further revenue, but rather to discourage problem and pathological gambling and their ill effects,” it said.
However, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) strongly criticised this approach, arguing that Treasury could not tax an activity that was supposedly illegal.
“Tax is, in principle, the consequence of an activity and tax policy should follow, not lead, legally regulated activities in the economy,” SAICA said.
It added that there was a difference between illegal activities having fiscal consequences and creating a specific tax for an illegal activity.
SAICA compared this to creating a direct tax on the sale of illegal narcotics rather than indirectly taxing these activities after initial enforcement of the law.
It said government should fix the law first, with an amendment to the National Gambling Act waiting for 17 years on the President’s desk for proclamation.
“We submit that government should first implement the current legislation and probably update the relevant gambling legislation further,” SAICA said.
Once a clear underlying regulatory framework aimed at limiting online gambling was in place, it could be supplemented by a tax.
Gamblers must feel the pain for Sin Tax to work
“The tax should not serve as the sole instrument to discourage such gambling,” SAICA stated.
“Behavioural taxes are most effective when they are visible to the consumer at the point of decision (for example, plastic bag levies or explicit excise duties).”
Therefore, SAICA argued that imposing the tax on gambling operators would not provide would-be gamblers with the direct price signal needed to discourage them from the activity.
“Indirect impact through just higher prices or lower payouts would be little or zero, given the intended behaviour of the gambler to be influenced is partly price-inelastic.”
As an alternative, SAICA pointed to government’s success in significantly reducing smoking during the 2000s.
It did this primarily by enacting laws that banned smoking in most public spaces but allowed it in partially enclosed places, and by banning the advertising of tobacco products.
MyBroadband contacted the National Gambling Board for comment regarding provincial authorities’ refusal to implement the national ban on interactive gambling.
While the NGB did not respond by publication, it did issue a press release regarding its confiscation of unlawful winnings.
“The National Gambling Act empowers the NGB to investigate the circumstances of unlawful gambling activities, including unlawful online gambling,” said the NGB’s acting CEO, Lungile Dukwana.
Approximately R3,075,000 was confiscated between 1 April 2025 and 10 April 2026, of which the majority, R2.3 million, was seized in early April 2026.
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