South Africa To Crackdown On Unlicensed Gambling Sites

South Africa’s National Gambling Act states that just those operators granted licenses by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) are allowed to offer their online gambling products inside the country of 53 million people. Up until now, however, just a few sports book licenses have been issued, and the whole process has since ground to a halt following the anti-gambling stance of the DTI’s Chief Director of Policy and Legislation, MacDonald Netshitenzhe.
South Africa’s land-based casinos have also been unable to acquire online gambling licenses, a situation which has apparently funneled around 5% of the industry’s revenues into the coffers of the 2,000 or so illegal sites currently operating in the country. Instead of trying to regulate online gambling in order to bring the situation under control, however, the National Gambling Board has instead decided to go after the illegal sites which service around 250,000 South Africans, with its Senior Manager Estelle Jonkheid explaining:
“The establishment of a multi-disciplinary task team is to consider strategies, interventions and actions against more than 2000 illegal operators and sites across all provinces in South Africa.”
Bringing together law enforcement agencies, gambling regulators, and existing license holders, the new task force will now pool their resources to enforce the unlicensed gambling ban currently being flaunted by outside operators. Announcement of the policy was made at a seminar hosted by the National Gambling Board and the Department of Trade and Industry, which was attended by regulators, cyber experts, bankers, and lawyers, as well as other involved parties.
Nevertheless, not all those in attendance agreed with the measures and one dissenting voice pointed out that it would be more beneficial granting online gambling licenses to the country’s casinos, as they would then be able to benefit from a revenue boost, whilst also indirectly attracting younger clientele to their venues which are presently dominated by an aging population.