The gambling sector in South Africa is gaining a lot of attention lately due to the large number of licenses being issued yearly according to new statistics from Parliament.
The Parliamentary answer from Rise Mzansi MP Makashule Gana confirmed that there were issued 3135 licenses for the 2024/2025 financial year, down slightly from 3174 for the previous year, and slightly lower than 3186 for 2022/2023. The fact that such a large number of licenses has been approved raises questions over whether the growth of the gambling industry can be sufficiently monitored by the government.
Majority of the licenses were issued to limited pay out machines and bookmakers that make up the majority of the growth in the sector.
The police have suggested that there is insufficient oversight in the gambling sector. Questions have been raised as to whether provincial boards have the appropriate resources to enforce consumer protection, responsible gambling, and financial reporting regulations consistently. There is an increasing concern that the oversight being provided by provincial boards is inconsistent across provinces and that there are boards that have a significant level of resources and boards that have very few resources.
Police reported a total of 32938 illegal gambling cases in the last five financial years, with approximately 100% coming from land-based gambling establishments and a total of 36 online gambling cases reported for the same period, resulting in 39 arrests and 22 convictions.
Due to these issues, many legislators are calling for an increase in coordination between national and provincial authorities. There have been several proposals made to improve
