From a speech delivered by Toby Chance MP during a debate in Parliament today:
House chairperson, honourable members and those joining us on social media platforms.
The National Gambling Board has just released its 2024-25 annual report which included a staggering array of statistics signifying the explosive growth of gambling and betting in South Africa.
For the past three years, gambling operators recorded average gross gambling revenue growth of 30% a year. Online betting overtook casinos in its share of total gambling revenue in 2021 and now accounts for 70% of all gambling revenue compared to casinos’ 22%. Gross gambling revenue of R75 billion now accounts for just under 1% of GDP.
But accompanying this growth are some more sinister trends, well-articulated by my colleague Honourable Masango and other members.
These include expenditure of scarce monthly income on gambling by minors, NSFAS grant and social grant recipients; a surge in gambling addiction and desperate calls for help by victims; and the proliferation of intrusive and seemingly blanket gambling and sports betting advertising across electronic media platforms, billboards and sports bodies.
The subject for discussion rightly calls for measures to better regulate the gambling industry to protect South Africans from gambling addiction. But addiction is only one of the negative consequences of our gambling obsession.
Recently, Old Mutual stated that the impact gambling has on people’s spending is so significant that it threatens the country’s economy. In its latest annual report, Famous Brands raised concerns over the growing impact of online gambling on consumer spending, saying that the surge in betting activity is eroding disposable income and weighing on restaurant traffic.
Veteran Pick’nPay CEO, Sean Summers, has called for an outright ban on gambling advertising, accusing a few gambling operators of hoovering up over R1 billion a week and sending it mostly offshore with little benefit to the fiscus.
South Africa is not alone in facing these challenges. The Parliament of India passed a new bill banning online gambling wholesale in August, due to concerns over its effects on participants. MPs in the UK House of Commons launched a comprehensive inquiry into the future of gambling regulation in July, with specific attention to the volume of advertising for gambling.
Concerns over the illicit gambling market, online and in person, have prompted Thailand to open talks on the legalisation of online gambling. Brazil has begun work on a national self-exclusion system.
Here at home, Parliament and the executive, notably the department of trade and industry since 2008 and the DTIC since 2019, have been asleep at the wheel. The National Gambling Act, 2004 was assented to on 6 August 2004 and came into operation on 1 November 2004.
The Act provides that the Minister must, within two years after the Gambling Act comes into operation, introduce legislation in Parliament to regulate interactive gambling within the Republic of South Africa.
The resulting 2008 National Gambling Amendment Act, though passed in both the National Assembly and NCOP, has not been implemented and is hopelessly outdated. Instead of enacting the 2008 legislation, in 2009 Minister Rob Davies appointed a Gambling Review Commission to conduct a review of gambling in the country. This led to the 2016 National Gambling Policy, which recommended a continued prohibition on online gambling, notwithstanding the growing prevalence of it in reality.
I must make it clear that fixed odds betting, mainly on sports events where the result is uncertain until it happens, is legal, hence the proliferation of sports betting including online.This is opposed to casino-style online gambling, which remains illegal. The Supreme Court of Appeal’s recent judgment has revealed just how much confusion there is over what gambling is and isn’t legal in South Africa. All the more reason to move to a system where regulation covers all forms of gambling, rather than sticking to a system designed twenty years ago.
Over the past 10 years, the South African public has been exposed to and has participated in online and interactive fixed odds betting licensed by provincial gambling authorities. At the same time, a lack of regulation of online gambling is resulting in revenue and jobs being lost to other gambling jurisdictions through illegal online gambling sites.
A new National Gambling Amendment Bill was tabled in 2018 which aimed to replace the national gambling board with a regulator and impose a Central Electronic Monitoring System. The bill was adopted by the National Assembly in December of that year then rejected by the NCOP. It was referred to the mediation committee, which was not constituted for seven years.
It was finally constituted in June this year but when it became clear the committee’s report would not receive majority party support, it was not tabled. We now sit in a situation of legislative paralysis.
The Democratic Alliance is proposing a solution and a way out of this logjam. The DA’s Remote Gambling private member’s bill was published in October 2024 and received public submissions with many useful recommendations and amendments. The bill updates the 2008 National Gambling Amendment Act and takes into account advances in technology and the explosion of online gambling and betting and associated advertising and sponsorship spend.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the portfolio committee, I tabled a proposal that the committee processes this as a committee bill. This would free up the department to focus on the myriad other issues requiring legislative and regulatory attention.
The portfolio committee would take the lead, combining the best elements of the 2008 Act, the 2018 bill and the Remote Gambling bill. It would be a joint effort by all parties, both within and outside the GNU, would take into account work the DTIC has already done as well as the public submissions received.
Parliament cannot afford once more to shirk its responsibility to provide leadership. I urge members of the portfolio committee to take the bill by the horns and support my resolution next Tuesday to seek permission from the Speaker to initiate this committee bill.
This would end regulatory uncertainty for gambling operators, provide comfort for victims of addictive gambling and generate much-needed revenue for national and provincial treasuries.
It would also restore public confidence in Parliament as an institution of, by and for the people. Parliament can once more assume its rightful place as the centre of debate and meaningful reform in South Africa, for the betterment of all.
Regards
Toby Chance MP
DA Spokesperson on Trade, Industry & Competition