“I need luck, luck!” says a woman in a black suit, Adidas sneakers and stockings on a scorching day in Cape Town, handing two R100 notes to a bookie to play the UK Lotto. The betting operation, inside a bar in Claremont, attracted more than a dozen punters over the lunch hour this week.
Locations like this, on the main street of a city ’s central business district, are a drawcard for working people wanting to gamble — now the biggest group seeking help for problems with gambling. A unionist in a red cap, a sharp young man bouncing on his feet and a hollow-cheeked man in a Bok jersey lined up behind the woman in black, also to play the UK Lotto.
From 2017 to 2023, participation in gambling has more than doubled in Africa, surging from 30.6% to 65.7% of the population, said the National Gambling Board chief compliance officer, Nkoatse Mashamaite, on Friday.
“Betting on online websites stands out.”
South Africans bet more than R1-trillion in the 2023/24 financial year — up 40% on the previous year — with most wagers going to online and sports betting. This accessible way to gamble on sports and games has overtaken casinos in popularity.
Psychologist and addiction expert Dan Wolf says: “The accessibility of gambling has changed the playing field. You could be at work and occupied with a variety of gambling apps between patients.”
A seismic shift in the gambling landscape erupted during the Covid pandemic, when online and sports betting accelerated. Under the National Gambling Act, online interactive gambling is prohibited, but online betting through licensed bookies playing on their websites (such as FirstBet in Claremont) is allowed.
About 30 years ago, players had to travel to casinos in “homelands” to gamble legally; today, a click of a smartphone or a walk down the block to bet online with a bookmaker offers instant access.
“People are desperate and tricked into believing they can make a lot of money online. They are looking for a quick fix, a magic fix,” says Johannesburg clinical psychologist Michael Sissison. “But it is much easier to blow money online than win.”
Even when I go to my village in Limpopo everyone is talking about gambling
— Makashule Gana, Rise Mzansi MP
The employed are not the only ones at risk of harmful gambling. Rising numbers of minors, tertiary students, women, people in rural areas and on the breadline are drawn to online gambling — available around the clock and widely advertised.
Wolf said that in some cases “children have haemorrhaged up to thirty grand out of their parents’ credit card account” and online gambling was devastating families.
“The damage from gambling addiction is often so much harder (for families) to recover from than harm inflicted on yourself such as substance abuse.”
Pay cheque not enough to pay bills
Sibongile Simelane-Quntana, executive director of the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation, said most people seeking help from its National Responsible Gambling Programme (NRGP) were employed, self-employed or working part-time.
“They are searching for a second source of income rather than entertainment because of the tough socioeconomic climate,” she said.
But gambling to survive makes people vulnerable to a spiral of debt, loan sharks or threats to their lives, while the betrayal of trust in relationships and financial ruin destroy families and jobs.
A former employee of a sports betting operation, who prefers to be anonymous, said: “What saddened me was going into markets in rural areas or even slums, throughout Africa and in parts of South Africa where people were the poorest, to test online games ... even games like ice hockey attract bets in Africa.
“Sooner or later every single spaza shop will become a gambling den because people are desperate. They will spend their last dollar and 90% of the time they lose,” the person said, noting that rural areas in countries from India to Italy are targeted as markets for growth.
Rise Mzansi MP Makashule Gana fears people are using their social development grants to gamble.
“The day the Sassa grants are paid out, I saw a queue outside the post office, but I also saw a queue outside betting offices and that triggered my concern,” he said, calling for research into the phenomenon.
“Even when I go to my village in Limpopo everyone is talking about gambling. It is getting huge and this boom (seems) linked to the payout of grants. People are gambling money they need to survive on.”
As online betting markets expand, so does the number of people seeking help for harmful gambling. The number of players referred to the National Responsible Gambling Programme could “jump into the 4,000s by the end of March this year”, said Simelane-Quntana, up from 2,299 referrals in the 2022/23 financial year. The number of people asking for self-exclusions from gambling platforms is also going up.
“Disordered gambling is increasing and we are seeing more and more people asking to be admitted for treatment,” she said, noting that in-patient admissions had tripled in the past year to December 2024.
Aspirational ads reminiscent of smoking ads
In smoking’s heyday, celebrities, TV shows and ads of glamorous holidays or red-carpet events promoted cigarettes, despite the health hazards and risk of addiction. Half a century on, gambling ads have seized that aspirational space, sponsoring sports teams, venues and events.
“Attending a New Year’s Test at the cricket stadium in Newlands I saw this,” Gana said.
Sissison said many soccer and rugby teams carry the names of betting companies boldly on their jerseys. “The paradox of healthy sport and being sucked into a betting vortex are difficult to reconcile.”
Influencers flaunt the benefits of gambling on social media and betting ads are ubiquitous, visible online on major news sites and broadcast regularly on radio and TV. Always they have the warning messages about responsible gambling, the helpline number and the tagline “winners know when to stop”.
Seeking help from the NRGP is a voluntary process and people do this when they hit rock bottom ... sometimes they have suicidal thoughts.
— Sibongile Simelane-Quntana, executive director of the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation
But South Africans are neither winning nor stopping. Younger generations are particularly vulnerable to the allure of online gambling, which has much in common with the interactive gaming they grew up with.
“What ignites the spark for them?” Wolf asks, about the hazards gambling poses to this age group.
“They are very tech savvy, have an affinity to sports, get excited by risk, and online gambling is pervasive now,” he said, noting there were significant barriers to entering the gambling world when he grew up.
Adults are surprised when their children betray their trust by betting their money online, and young adults tend to have a high level of naivety about gambling, said Wolf, the director of Houghton House, which admits in-patients for addiction treatment.
Gambling has shifted to the youth cohort of 18 to 35, which “shows an increase in students from institutions of higher learning seeking help”, said Simelane-Quntana of their latest referral data. The NGB undertook a socioeconomic impact study on gambling in South Africa in 2023/24 and is likely to release the findings this year.
“Seeking help from the NRGP is a voluntary process and people do this when they hit rock bottom ... sometimes they have suicidal thoughts,” said Simelane-Quntana, noting that the programme is open to anyone with a gambling problem or addiction, whether they come to them from legal or illegal operations.
Sin tax to boost the budget?
Declaring that he has betting accounts for leisure, Gana is calling for reforms in SA’s fastest growing industry.
He says better oversight (the council and board have been inactive) and restrictions on advertising — and a higher tax on the soaring revenue from gambling to support measures such as the rehabilitation of addicts — are imperative.
The National Gambling Act (2004) and nine acts in each province, where gambling operators register, control all gambling except the South African National Lotto, which is governed by the Lotteries Act of 1997. In 2008, the National Gambling Amendment Act was passed to regulate interactive gambling, but disagreements about implementation of the act have delayed its proclamation.
Meanwhile, gross gambling revenue is skyrocketing, reaching R59.3bn in the 2023/24 financial year, up from R8bn 20 years ago (2003/04). Betting generated 60% of the gross gambling revenue in the past year, while casinos contributed almost 30%, limited payout machines 7% and bingo 3%, the National Gambling Board reports.
Only 0.1% goes to counselling and treatment for problem gambling and addiction, said Gana, calling for higher contributions from the industry towards rehabilitation, counselling and treatment.
He is also calling for a greater sin tax on gambling. Perhaps this could help finance minister Enoch Godongwana balance his contested budget?
• For counselling, treatment and support to stop harmful gambling, contact the toll-free helpline 0800-006-008, e-mail helpline@responsiblegambling.org.za or click here.
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