South Africa is a nation of gamblers with more than 70% of its population participating in the national lottery and 19% of the population engaging in casino gambling.
There has also been a massive growth in the propensity to gamble with the percentage of household expenditure allocated to gambling rising from 1,3% to 1,9%, or from R6,8-billion rand to R10,6 billion rand between 2001 and 2002. This represents a growth of 46%.
A chorus of members of Parliament (MPs) mainly from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) said that plans afoot to extend the gambling environment to include limited payout machines at entertainment spots should be discouraged.
According to a survey carried out for the National Gambling Board — the results of which were provided to MPs serving on the trade and industry portfolio committee on Wednesday — only 27% of the population does not participate in gambling.
The survey, presented to the committee by board chairperson Chris Fismer and a team of advisers, was carried out among 2 050 people including 1 000 by telephone and 1 050 personal interviews.
Of those who did not gamble nearly 15% of them thought it was not acceptable to gamble but they had no objections to gambling by others. Just over 12% found it unacceptable either for religious reasons or financial constraint.
MPs were told that about 28% of those surveyed who were unemployed participated in the national lottery, and 22% of them visited casinos.
Of those who did gamble — and MPs were told that these figures were probably 25% lower than admitted to — 57% spent less than R50 a month while about 30,5% spent R51 to R150 a month on gambling. About 9% spent between R151 and R300 a month while about 0,1% spent more than R2 000 a month.
The survey found that about R70 of each R100 gambled was spent at casinos, while betting on horses amounted to R15 of it and a similar amount was spent on the lottery.
As a percentage of its contribution to the GDP gambling had a total impact of R9,1-billion in 2000, the board reported. This represented about 1,13% of GDP.
Its contribution to capital investment was just over R10-billion between 1997 and 2000 with 53,5% of this concentrated in Gauteng, 18% in the Western Cape, 11,4% in KwaZulu Natal, 5,9% in the Eastern Cape and 5,5% in the North West.
Altogether 50 673 people were involved in the gambling industry including 16 103 in direct employment and 34 570 in indirect employment — in the year 2000. This represented 1,1% of formal jobs.
Of these 63,8% were black, 23,7% white, 9,5% coloured and 3% Asian.
South Africa dominated the gross gaming turnover of the SADC region — contributing 84% of the gross casino turnover and 88% of the lottery turnover.
ANC MP Desmond Lockey, noting that 40% of South Africa’s population was unemployed, said it was a myth that foreign tourists were flocking to South African casinos, but that it was South Africans who were “spending hard earned cash”.
ANC MP Fatima Hajaij said there was “a serious problem in our country [with the poor gambling]… the poor are getting poorer despite government trying its best”. – I-Net Bridge