South Africa’s ‘online casino ban’: what the Gauteng ruling really means for the gambling market

In October 2025, a wave of headlines sparked confusion, criticism and industry-wide debate over the supposed nationwide ban of online casino gambling in South Africa. The reality, however, was far more nuanced. 

The Gauteng ruling – the legal grey area and confusion

The pandemonium began when Supabet (Portapa Pty Ltd) introduced a roulette-style product into physical betting shops, giving customers the opportunity to place fixed-odds bets on the outcome. The Casino Association of South Africa challenged this, arguing that such games fall under casino licences and should be restricted to licensed casino operators, not betting licences.

South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal agreed, confirming that under the Gauteng Gambling Act, betting and casino gaming are distinct activities and require separate licences. The ruling should have closed a regulatory loophole where operators had been previously livestreaming casino-style games and framing them as betting products. It reinforced that while bookmakers can offer fixed-odds bets on legitimate events such as sports, they cannot offer casino gaming through betting platforms.

So, where did the confusion come from? Some organisations, including the National Gambling Board of South Africa (NGB), suggested the ruling extended to all online casino-style gambling which was not the case as the ruling itself only applied to retail activity specifically in Gauteng.

What followed was much debate around online casino-style betting and the broader legality of online “contingency betting”.  In simple terms, contingency betting involves placing fixed-odds bets online on uncertain outcomes – like who will be the next prime minister or which team will win a football match. The grey area lies in whether online casino-style games, such as roulette, can also be defined as “uncertain events”. Some operators argue they can, while others say this is illegal online casino gaming – leaving the area disputed and unresolved in South Africa.

 “The National Gambling Board in South Africa is at loggerheads with the nine provinces about the interpretation,” explains Sean Coleman, CEO of South African Bookmakers’ Association. “The National Gambling Board are saying this purported contingency betting is in fact interactive gaming and it’s unlawful. And the provinces disagree. Nobody’s gone to court yet to get any sort of declaratory order on the issue.”

Wayne Lurie, Director of Lurie Inc Attorneys, strongly believes some organisations intentionally created confusion around the Gauteng ruling: “I was going to use the word bamboozled into an understanding which I think is the National Gambling Board’s intention – to confuse the markets around what is actually legal in South Africa.”

He continues: “This is a campaign of disinformation, I believe, that’s trying to achieve an end goal of a national ban that is actually not within the[ir]  statutory power as a national regulator, because as a national regulator, they misunderstand their position which is not to regulate the gaming activity around the country in each and every province.”

Lurie argues the NGB’s role is to set the norms and standards for the industry and act as an oversight body. 

Acting CEO of the National Gambling Board of South Africa Lungile Dukwana refutes this, arguing there has never been any legal ambiguity around online casino-style betting.  Dukwana suggests recent criticisms are not new but stem from operators misunderstanding the law, particularly as online betting grew rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic in the absence of clear rules. 

He notes: “Obviously some of the contributors to this misinterpretation may have been an issue because sports betting became more prominent during or after COVID because people could not go to the casinos and all of those kinds of things. [Online gambling] started to pick up in South Africa; it increased quite significantly if you compare it to the period before that.”

Dukwana reiterates his stance that under the National Gambling Act of 2004, specifically citing Section 11, only sports betting is permitted, while online casino-style or “interactive” gambling has always been illegal. He said the law is there to benefit and protect law-abiding citizens and operators. The NGB recently began engaging with jurisdictions where many illicit operators are based and have issued formal notices to address the issue. Dukwana says the corporation is also working on plans to ensure fairer conditions for licensed businesses.

“It’s work that is ongoing and I think that people are going to [have to] watch this space, as NGB, we are not sleeping on the job, we are doing the job that we are supposed to be doing to protect the punter, to protect those ones who are licensed and to deal with the ones who are not complying to the law,” he says defiantly. “That is our responsibility.”

The offshore boom: whose to blame?

A key question raised by the Gauteng ruling is whether restricting access to certain forms of gambling is inadvertently driving players towards offshore operators. With online casino-style gaming largely prohibited in South Africa, some argue that demand has simply spilled into the illegal market. Does this mean the current regulatory framework may hinder, rather than support channelisation?

One thing everyone agrees on – whether operator, lawyer or regulator – is the scale of offshore activity and the rise of the grey market, a sign of just how unclear and contested South Africa’s gambling landscape has become.

A Yield Sec report from 2024 found 62% of the gambling market to be illegal, with an estimated R55 billion (£2, 429,878,000) in revenue largely flowing offshore. With legal operators paying around 6.5% tax, offshore activity is estimated to cost the government a staggering R3.5 billion (£156,418,237.90) in lost revenue.

Coleman, who commissioned the report, says: “When you have a look at our economy and the infrastructure and what’s going on with people having no water, electricity and various other things, you can only imagine what R3.5 billion in additional taxes into those provincial economies would be doing for those provincial budgets.”

The Yield Sec report highlights further concerns: 2,084 illegal operators actively target South Africa and 16.3 million people interacted with illegal gambling over the 12-month period.

Lurie describes illegal gambling in South Africa as both “significant” and “devastating” pointing to weak enforcement and limited oversight.

He explains: “There’s no effective enforcement, gate or bar on South Africans… it is quite easy with all sorts of means such as crypto and otherwise to mask transactions going in and out of the country. 

“So, offshore casinos are sort of free to offer their services, offer their games to local punters with very little government intervention. And this is one of my main concerns and criticisms of the National Gambling Board again in terms of picking fights at every opportunity and public scraps with the provincial regulators, as well as the licensed operators who are contributing significantly to South Africa.”

He adds: “[They’re] ignoring the threat that’s coming from outside our borders in terms of offshore operators.”

Dukwana believes the NGB acknowledges the scale of illegal gambling and shares concerns regarding revenue leakage, consumer protection, and unfair competition for licensed operators. He states enforcement is challenging for the corporation and other organisations because illegal operators are often based outside the country, making regulation, laws, and accountability more difficult to track.

He explains: “They are doing things that should not be done in South Africa, but we don’t have people to go back to in terms of enforcement. We have to work harder in order to trace them and also refer them to the jurisdictions where they are actually coming from.” 

He notes that offshore operators have an advantage, as they are not taxed locally and revenues flow elsewhere, adding: “It leaves us to deal with the consequences.”

Acting CEO of the National Gambling Board of South Africa Lungile Dukwana

The ‘silent epidemic’ of problem gambling

The debate around the legality of online ‘contingency betting’ has intensified a broader clash over the future direction of South Africa’s gambling regulation. On one side, some groups are calling for tighter restrictions – and even a full ban on gambling – citing concerns around problem gambling. On the other, others argue that the industry needs to move in the opposite direction, with more modern, liberal regulation.

Critics argue that tightening restrictions could have inadvertent consequences. With a significant share of gambling already taking place in the illegal market, further limits on what legal operators can offer may risk driving more players outside of the regulated system.

Notably, several civil society organisations, faith-based groups and advocacy movements are demanding the South African government prohibit online betting services, labelling it a ‘silent epidemic.’

Lurie says there is a deep concern about problem gambling in South Africa but believes failure lies with the South African government and NGB who are not doing enough to tackle the issue.

“A total ban of online gambling in South Africa will be utterly disastrous; [it would] just entrench the offshore illegals position more than ever before,” he shares. “There’s always a market for illegal [gambling] and all you’re doing is increasing, not only the access to it, but the desire for it. So I think that the [government] is exploiting the responsible gambling narrative to try to say, ‘Well, we need to throw the baby out of the bath water’, whilst neglecting their duty to deal with responsible gambling initiatives like the self-exclusion database.”

Coleman shares Lurie’s sentiments as he wants to have a stronger relationship with the government to introduce better safeguards including access to official databases for age verification. This would help prevent underage users from opening accounts by checking IDs against Home Affairs records.

The National Gambling Board believes gambling is intended to be a regulated, revenue-generating recreational activity, but weak enforcement and illegal operations are distorting its purpose. Dukwana suggests a key step in reducing social harm is stronger collaboration between all stakeholders.

He shares: “We are saying that we should be one on [responsible gambling] and try and implement the legislation as it’s actually [meant to] protect the vulnerable groups. It’s a responsibility of all of us to do that and if we do that, the market itself will be in a safer space, it will be sustainable and will be able to advance as we are supposed to without causing harm to society. But [we should be] also reaping the benefits that we’re supposed to reap in terms of the economics of it.”

Revenue, regulation and re-channelisation: Gambling’s economic role

While offshore activity and problem gambling remain critical issues that require urgent attention, the gambling industry continues to play a significant role in the South African economy. Currently, around R4.8 billion (£214,548,377.83) is generated annually according to Reuters, much of which is largely absorbed into provincial budgets and contributes to general public spending rather than being utilised for gambling-related harms.

While policymakers contemplate stricter controls and higher taxes, some in the industry propose that regulation needs to evolve in alignment. By expanding the legal offering such as regulated online casino games including RNG Casino, this could persuade players to ditch the offshore market. Furthermore, proposals such as the Remote Gaming Bill (which would help to legalise and support the industry by increasing available product range) have remained stalled for years, leaving a gap between consumer demand and the current legal framework.

Coleman believes that the rise in online gambling is partly driven by legal operators offering new products that were previously only available on illegal offshore sites. This has led to a process of “re-channelisation,” where players shift from unregulated platforms back into the legal market, where safer gambling products and tools are available.  In addition, increased accessibility through mobile and online platforms has further contributed to overall growth.

While this may sound positive, a potential issue is the government’s proposal to introduce a national 20% tax on all gambling profits which aims to double revenues from the sector to 10 billion rand. Many betting companies strongly oppose this, arguing that higher taxes would not reduce problem gambling but instead drive players to underground, unregulated sites, allowing the grey market to continue to grow.

This raises a key question: could a tougher stance on online gambling across South Africa actually undermine one of its strongest economic growth engines?

“We want to discourage gambling and we want to dampen this down, but then you tax the operator… it just doesn’t make economic sense,” Coleman says.

“What we advocate for is that we’d much rather work closely with the government and be able to try and create additional re-channelisation of the offshore illegal market back onshore where immediately the provinces get 6.5% and the national government gets another 12% which is the net amount.”

Dukwana says stricter enforcement may bring short-term disruption but is necessary to ensure a more sustainable and compliant market. 

“We think that going forward it’s the pain that we’ll have to take for now, but it will be better as we go along. But we must all participate in that [plan] to make the environment better and sustainable,” he shares. “For us, it’s about sustainability, the safety of the player, but also it’s about the growth and the economy that we actually want to see, but we have to take some pain in order to get there.”

Short-term pain, long-term reform?

So, is Dukwana right? Could short-term pain ultimately lead to long-term reform, sustainability and growth for the industry? 

Lurie doesn’t think so.  “I’d love to be positive, but I think that if we carry on this trajectory, we are going to enter into an era of more litigation,” he says. “I think it’s going to open the door even wider, not that it’s not already wide open, for the illegals to strengthen their hold on the market. I think if anything, the consequence would not be pushing the legitimate operators as much into the grey [market] as to just leave the market as they are doing in places like the UK; they’re leaving the market behind where the taxes are becoming unfeasible.”

Coleman agrees, adding, “When people have a look and size you up against what’s available on the illegal market, they’ll move to that illegal market because the pricing is more competitive and is better value for the money, and that’s a serious concern for us.”

But Dukwana takes a more optimistic view, stating the country’s tradition is rooted on robust debate and engagement, claiming: “The reality is that if you understand South African culture and how we operate in South Africa…there are normally different opinions, but we normally find a way of resolving some of these particular things.”

He believes this process will lead to greater regulatory clarity and a more sustainable market, sharing, “This kind of an engagement is actually leading us to a phase where we are going to have more certainty, where we’re going to be able to have a developed online legislation, where we are going to be able to have a society that respects player protection, that respects the vulnerable groups, that creates a sustainable market in South Africa and the one that can derive the most value from the activity of gambling.”

Dukwana concludes: “So, I think this is leading us to a long-term reform. In fact, I wouldn’t even say long-term, medium-term reform because I don’t think it’s going to take that long. In the medium term we should be able to address this particular issue, but all of us for now must find ways of making sure that we work within the law.”