Two sides of the same coin: The gambling industry should be regulated
the same way as its tobacco counterpart. Photo: Chris F
Like many gamblers, South Africa has been slow to admit it has a problem. And like many gambling companies, we’re quick to blame the problem on individuals who “play” irresponsibly.
This misses the real issue. The problem isn’t the users, many of whom are vulnerable. It’s the rich, sophisticated and politically-connected corporations that prey on them.
Gambling has become South Africa’s most virulent addiction. Online venues and bookmakers dominate: in the five years between 2018 and 2023, income for companies from these services increased by 1 400%. As Stats SA recently reported, more than half of many households “recreation expenditure” is spent on bets.
Yet the statistics overlook how predatory the sector is. Although cast as harmless entertainment, in a recent survey only 14% of gamblers did so for fun. Most — 63% — gamble with money they can’t afford to lose. Gambling is harmful; mountains of evidence link it to financial precarity, physical and mental harm, suicide and crime. And it is not just gamblers who are hurt.
For every person who struggles with gambling, a recent study estimated that at least six other people — friends, family — suffer. The industry’s profits rely on pressing the most vulnerable: in a US study, 4.9% of online gamblers accounted for 80% of the revenue. In a UK study, half of what companies “won” off their users (the Gross Gambling Yield) came from only 0.5% of gamblers.
Gambling tycoons are quick to downplay the harms. They boast of the jobs they create and the initiatives they fund — a tactic lifted straight from yesterday’s tobacco companies, who justified social harm with fig leaves of charity. Worse still, much of this “charity” remains self-serving. In a recent response to investigative queries from amaBhungane, one of the largest betting companies in South Africa vaunted their branded sponsorship of popular sport teams — that’s not philanthropy, that’s advertising.
Online gambling creates very few jobs. A UK study found that only 3% of online gambling spending goes toward staff. In restaurants, by contrast, nearly half of every customer’s bill pays workers’ wages. Across South Africa, restaurant owners are seeing their tables empty as online casinos devour the cash families once saved for a night out. Money spent on gambling is money not spent —or invested — elsewhere. Gambling doesn’t create jobs; it destroys them.
This is what the focus on “responsible gamblers” misses. Online gambling is a corporation’s dream: highly profitable with little labour and low costs. The online systems are sophisticated. They use our data, target our advertising, and design their games to fixate our attention and make us lose track of time.
The corporations are also politically powerful. A well-known industry mogul is one of the largest funders of political parties in South Africa — donating to the Democratic Alliance (DA), ActionSA, the Inkatha Freedom Party, and Build One South Africa. Against this muscle, to blame the individual gambler is to blame the sheep, not the turbo-charged wolf.
We need reform urgently. The Remote Gambling Bill, introduced for discussion last year, is a start.
It provides a framework for basic regulation in terms of licences, which is undeniably needed. But it misunderstands the problem. Much of the Bill tries to prevent children from gambling — this is obviously essential, but it overlooks that so much of gambling’s harm affects adults. For example, the Bill bans adverts on radio and television (but not online…) except between 8pm and 6am, which keeps adverts running precisely when adults are most vulnerable. We need a complete ban on adverts, like with tobacco.
The Bill promotes options for individuals to limit how much they can spend in a day, but these are set voluntarily; it overlooks the insidious ways in which users are prompted to gamble compulsively.
We need to restrict adverts, as we have done with tobacco. We need regulations especially for the most harmful and addictive games, many of which dominate online play — the games are high-speed, high-intensity, repetitive and designed to lock our attention.
And we also need to recognise that regulators are outgunned. Corporations introduce and adjust new games relentlessly. To serve the public, we need access to how the products are designed and the data on how they are used. Corporations must make that data transparent.
By insisting that gambling addiction is an individual problem, corporate leaders deflect attention from their own choices. The executives have built systems that depend on manipulation, then blame the most vulnerable for being manipulated. They may see themselves as innovators or philanthropists — but the truth is simpler: their profits come from pain.
Real reform will depend on whether we can hold executives, not gamblers, responsible for that harm.
David Jeffery and Imraan Jeeva are members of the ANC’s Jeannette Schoon Branch in Johannesburg. They write in their personal capacity.