The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition wants an updated National Gambling Bill in front of Cabinet this year. (Image created by GenAI)
The National Gambling Amendment Bill – in the works since 2018 – is before Parliament to be finalised as the industry calls for urgent action rather than more talk about blocking illegal offshore gambling websites.
While the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition did not disclose what interventions were being proposed in the updated legislation, it confirmed that amendments to the latest iteration of the Bill are being finalised.
“There are discussions with the National Gambling Policy Council. Two meetings were held to date. Proposed amendments to the Act are under consideration between national government and provinces,” says departmental spokesperson Bongani Lukhele.
A draft for public comment will be “publicised in due course,” Lukhele indicates, with the Bill set to be before Cabinet by the end of next March. The proposed changes went through a mediation process that ran from May to June last year.
In response to questions, the National Gambling Board (NGB) notes that current legislation only enables its inspectors to scrutinise entities suspected of providing illicit online gambling if accompanied by provincial inspectors, often causing delays.
If passed, the Bill would allow the NGB to investigate illegal gambling independently, forfeit unlawful winnings without a court order, and monitor all gambling modes to consolidate national data.
Introduced in 2018 to update the 2004 Act, the Bill has twice lapsed, twice been revived and spent years in mediation before a closed-door committee meeting last year resulted in a further amendment following two earlier revisions.
“There were issues of contention between national and provinces since 2019 due to several amendments in that Bill,” says Lukhele, without disclosing what those were.
South Africa does not suffer from a lack of laws prohibiting illegal online gambling – it suffers from a lack of laws that enable effective enforcement. The country’s current framework is best described as “prohibition without enforcement,” says the South African Bookmakers’ Association (SABA).
The NGB has identified more than 100 illegal gambling websites and believes many more remain undetected. “Some of these illegal gambling operators have been shut down and resurfaced with different URLs. These operators do not pay taxes or any licence fees paid by licensed operators,” it says.
Sample of locations of illegal gambling sites. (Source: SABA)
Information from SABA indicates that more than R50 billion in gross gambling revenue is diverted offshore each year, with an estimated 16 million South Africans having engaged with illegal platforms in the past year. SABA’s research lists 49 unlicensed websites offering online gambling to South Africans, including 1xBet.com, 22BetCasino and 888 Casino.
The NGB says it is increasingly collaborating with law enforcement agencies and regulators, including provincial licensing authorities, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre – a non-profit company formed by South African banks to combat organised financial and cyber crime – and the Financial Intelligence Centre.
The NGB has published a request for ‘expression of interest’ to monitor and possibly block illegal gambling websites. “The taking down of illegal websites is ongoing with relevant internet providers,” it says.
In response, the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) is pushing back against a request from the NGB to the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies that would allow the state to block access to foreign gambling websites without a clear legislative framework.
ISPA says the proposal not only presents technical challenges but also undermines the right to access information.
The original 2018 Bill barred anyone from providing internet or other technological services to unlicensed gambling operators, before shifting to a notification mechanism requiring ISPs to cease doing business with illegal operators. That provision was removed during mediation and later reinstated. The 2018 Bill also empowered the proposed National Gambling Regulator to notify ISPs and financial institutions to cease doing business with operators found to be acting illegally.
South African Bookmakers’ Association CEO Sean Coleman. (Photograph supplied)
Website blocking is not a silver bullet, with international evidence showing that sustainable success requires multiple complementary interventions. This includes website blocking, payment disruption, advertising restrictions, consumer education, intelligence-led investigations and international regulatory cooperation, says SABA.
Australia strengthened its laws in 2017 to give the communications regulator powers to act against illegal offshore gambling operators, including ordering ISPs to block websites. Since then, more than 1 300 illegal gambling and affiliate websites have been blocked and over 220 operators have exited the Australian market, SABA notes.
“The lesson for South Africa is not that ISP blocking alone solves the problem. It is that governments can move quickly when legislation provides regulators with the necessary authority and stakeholders work together towards a common objective,” says SABA.
SABA welcomed the NGB’s move to appoint a service provider to block illegal online websites. Sean Coleman, SABA CEO, says the NGB is “declaring war on illegal, unregulated platforms, particularly ahead of or during high-volume sporting periods like the Fifa 2026 World Cup”.
“In doing so, the NGB is taking an essential step toward safeguarding vulnerable citizens and protecting the integrity of the domestic economy.”
Coleman adds: “We fully support the NGB’s heightened enforcement actions that include a technological component, High Court forfeiture operations, and the coordinated legislative push to eradicate these illicit networks.”
