place of the rising sun —and online gambling

The Mpumalanga government outdid itself. The province might have trouble filling the scores of potholes on the roads to Graskop Gorge, one of its top tourist attractions, but it beat its own ambitious forecast for online gambling revenue by a considerable margin.

According to Mpumalanga’s 2023 budget, the province expected to generate R541m from online gambling in 2023/2024. Instead, there was an increase of 140% to R759m. The figure was only R16m in 2016/2017; it shot up to R52m in 2019/2020 and hit R252m in 2021/2022…