South African Gambling Conference

April 27, 2011 | News Category: Gaming Law

0 Comments

Recently, South Africa held its 6th Biennial South African Gambling Conference. Although the future of online gambling in South Africa is still unclear, it certainly is not looking particularly positive, at least according to the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry who addressed the conference delegates.

Although the future of online gambling in South Africa is not clear, there are still many South African's who gamble successfully online, even though the government is attempting to prevent deposits and withdrawals in a similar to manner to that of the United States.

The Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Elizabeth Thabethe addressed the delegates regarding the state of the online gambling industry in South Africa at this time. She praised the National Gambling Board, and other regulatory bodies, for the 'good job' that they are doing in controlling 'illegal gambling' in the country.

The conference theme was 'Gambling driven by technology.' What was interesting is that the Deputy Minister seemed more concerned about how the delegates could find ways to use technology to curb illegal (online) gambling. The address centered around the challenge that South Africa is facing regarding interactive gambling that is taking place illegally.

Deputy Minister Thabethe said: "I am glad that initiatives like the banks' intervention not to pay winnings from unlawful gambling activities and forfeit them to the state through the NGB (National Gambling Board), and the blocking of processing of credit card transactions relating to illegal online gambling ... are being explored."

In order to find some balance in her address, and not simply make out that technology is a villain by offering interactive, or online gambling, and to show that she feels technology can be useful for other developments, the Deputy Minister said the following: "My assertion does not suggest that we should not allow technological innovation to advance growth and inhibit development. As government, we will continue to embrace it."

It had seemed that South Africa was going to be an economically stable environment with a good legal system that would embrace offshore online gambling companies, providing licensing and online gambling regulation. Delegates had gone to Antigua and Barbuda to look at how the Caribbean island nation runs their online gambling jurisdiction. No definitive conclusions came out of this.

While it seemed that South Africa was well on their way to regulating and legalizing the online gambling industry, the courts in the province of Gauteng managed to name online gambling as illegal, which ultimately negated any of the developments that had already taken place in the process of legalizing online gambling in South Africa.