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The National Gambling Board (NGB) is working with authorities in countries where illegal offshore gambling sites operate as they fight to shut down the digital platforms, which are taking billions of rand out of South Africa each month and adding to the country’s gambling problem. Parliament was briefed on Wednesday about the gambling board’s response to illegal, noncompliant gambling platforms, which generated an estimated R5-trillion in turnover. Revenue from legal online gambling amounted to R75bn in 2025.Online gambling platforms not based or licensed in South Africa make billions from local punters, many of whom are stretched financially, but don’t pay tax. A study by AI-powered research group Yazi found 57% of 1,028 respondents sacrificed essential spending to gamble, while 29% borrowed money to gamble.Briefing parliament’s portfolio committee on trade, industry & competition, acting CEO Lungile Dukwana said the gambling board aims to update gambling regulations and taxes and is reaching out to authorities where illegal online platforms are registered for a co-ordinated response.“We are seeing that there are external operators … in our space, and those are not licensed in South Africa, and that creates a challenge of its own because, in that specific instance, they are coming from the online casinos, and they are offered by other countries. “Those are licensed from, for example, Gibraltar, the Philippines and the UK and Malta as well. Those have been the source of our main platforms in terms of the online gambling sites that we have actually seen,” Dukwana said.We are seeing that there are external operators … in our space, and those are not licensed in South Africa, and that creates a challenge of its own because, in that specific instance, they are coming from the online casinos, and they are offered by other countries.— Lungile DukwanaHe said that there has been a positive response from some of the countries where the illegal platforms are based, and the gambling board plans to continue to work with those authorities on various challenges related to gambling.“We have engaged with the UK [and] … with Malta. We still have to have engagement with the Philippines and Gibraltar to ask them to stop their licences from operating in our own space,” Dukwana said.“That work we have done on our side, and we have sent them … cease-and-desist letters, so that they can be able to stop that work from happening on our side.”The gambling board is working with the department of communications, the police, and the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to explore blocking the IP addresses of platforms that the board has found to be operating illegally, he said. “That work is work that is in progress … [and it] is something that we’re paying attention to. But also we’re working strongly with the law enforcement agencies to ensure that the SAPS and the [provincial authorities are involved] so that all of us can work together in suppressing the illegal gambling.”Dukwana said the gambling board is also in discussions with the National Gambling Policy Council (NGPC) regarding the challenges with online gambling. The board has been working on a report on the issue and will submit it to the council soon.“We have now written a report to the NGPC to have this matter deliberated on, especially around online gambling, the issues of bet exchanges, and historical loss tracing; those aspects are the issues that are going to the next NGPC,” he said.DA MP Toby Chance said that there is a discrepancy between the regulation of gambling platforms and that of lotteries. He also asked that the committee be allowed to see the report that the gambling board plans to submit to the NGPC.MK party MP Sithembile Nkosi said the gambling board’s biggest risk is a lack of technological and regulatory enforcement capacity; gambling is evolving faster than the regulations seeking to monitor and manage the industry, she said.
