The shift by South African gamblers from physical casinos to online platforms continues to accelerate – with all the deleterious effects one might expect.
According to the National Gambling Board, around 60% of gross gambling revenues – all the money staked minus winnings paid to customers – for the year ended 31 March 2025 was attributed to online sports betting.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, National Gambling Board CEO Lungile Dukwana said online gambling presents big challenges that require regulatory intervention.
“Access through mobile phones and computers has led to an increase in illegal gambling, and some of those shifts in technology pose a challenge in terms of enforcing regulations and contribute to compulsive gambling and addiction,” Dukwana told the portfolio committee of trade, industry & competition.
“We need a firm policy position to ensure that we deal with issues related to interactive gambling specifically,” he added.
According to the presentation, the gambling industry generated R1.5-trillion in turnover for the year, with gross revenues totalling R75-billion. Online sports betting contributed R44.5-billion to the R75-billion total, while physical casinos, at R16.6-billion, made up only 22% of that amount.
Gross revenues from casinos fell by 4.1% year on year. The physical number of machines being used is also in decline. Operational slots declined by 443 to 21 813 in the 2025 financial year, representing a 2% drop. Operational tables dropped by 2.2% from 910 tables in 2024 to 890 in 2025.
Online slots
“This points to the fact that there has been a fall in consumer demand [for physical machines], with casino operators [responding] by reducing the operational slots in casinos. What we have witnessed is that online slots have shown significant growth, suggesting there has been substitution with punters gambling online in place of the physical or land-based slot machines,” said Yvonne Gwenhure, senior manager for strategy and organisational performance at the National Gambling Board.
Gwenhure said online gambling growth may also explain the “negative growth” seen in other physical gambling categories such as bingo and limited payout machines. Bingo revenue fell by 2.3% year on year while limited payout machine revenue slumped by 5.5%. “It’s pointing to the fact that customers are opting to engage more of their gambling activities online,” said Gwenhure.
Read: Online gambling is South Africa’s next big social ill
Long-term trend data from the National Gambling Board shows that revenues from physical casinos accounted for about 80% of the market back in 2010. This number has declined sharply over time as online sports betting revenues have risen, converging in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic when lockdown restrictions pushed consumers online across all industries. Online gambling has since overtaken all other gambling modes and the gap continues to widen, growing by 10 percentage points between 2024 and 2025.
Online sports betting is the only legal form of online gambling in South Africa. Even so, other forms of online gambling, including online casino games, continue to thrive. However, there are difference in how local online gambling service providers and their international counterparts circumvent the regulations restricting the provision of online games.
Dukwana said some of the provincial legislative authorities tasked with regulating their respective gambling industries in each of South Africa’s nine provinces have been using loopholes in legislation to allow interactive games under the guise of “gambling contingencies”.
The gambling board has been working with the various authorities to ensure compliance, but Dukwana said a stronger legislative foundation is required, which should begin with the overhauling of the “outdated” National Gambling Act of 2004.
It’s also proving difficult to regulate international gambling platforms that offer their services in South Africa. Co-operation with regulators in other jurisdictions has yielded some positive results, but others – Dukwana made special mention of Curacao, a small Caribbean island north of Venezuela – have allegedly refused to engage.
Efforts to fight illegal international gambling operations include collaborative work between the provincial authorities, police, banks and the financial intelligence centre. The gambling board has even lobbied the department of communications & digital technologies in efforts to have IP addresses from certain jurisdictions, like Curacao, blocked. Similar discussions are taking place with Google Africa and communications regulator Icasa.
The gambling board has also been working “closely” with the Advertising Regulatory Board to limit the proliferation of gambling advertising, which Dukwana said has led to some billboards and other advertising being taken down as the understanding of advertising regulations as they apply to gambling improves.
Read: Calls for crackdown on online gambling ‘wild west’ in South Africa
“There has been an upsurge in online gambling and casino games offered by offshore operators. There is a need for the development of a legal framework for online gambling, but there is also a need for gambling crime to be [categorised] as a priority crime,” said Dukwana. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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