SABA CEO: Fight against illegal SA gambling still at advocacy stage despite legislative push

Speaking to iGB, Sean Coleman, the CEO of the Association of South African Bookmakers has clarified a recent statement he made on the market’s enforcement against the black market.

“At this stage, it remains largely within the advocacy and stakeholder engagement phase,” Coleman says. “The publication of our statement was intended to contribute constructively to what we believe is an increasingly important national policy discussion rather than to suggest that legislative amendments are imminent.”

Coleman’s comments add nuance to SABA’s argument that South Africa suffers from “a lack of laws that enable effective enforcement”, rather than a lack of laws prohibiting illegal online gambling.

The July statement proposed six legislative interventions, spanning amendments to the National Gambling Act, the Electronic Communications Act, the Financial Intelligence Centre Act and coordinated action from the Reserve Bank and other regulators.

The scale of the problem SABA is pointing to is significant.

A Yield Sec report commissioned by the association estimated that illegal operators account for roughly 62% of all online gambling activity in South Africa, diverting more than R50 billion in gross gambling revenue offshore each year, with around 16 million South Africans having engaged with illegal platforms in the past year.

Coleman said the breadth of the proposed reforms meant a coordinated approach would ultimately be required.

“Our proposals touch on gambling regulation, electronic communications, payment systems and financial intelligence legislation, which means that a coordinated approach will ultimately be required,” he said.

“SABA’s role is to continue placing evidence-based proposals before policymakers and to support practical interventions that can be implemented both in the short and longer term.”

Tender process under way, but no timeline yet

One development SABA has viewed positively is the National Gambling Board’s (NGB) call for expressions of interest from service providers capable of monitoring, blocking, tracking and reporting illegal gambling websites, published on 30 June with submissions due by 7 August 2026.

However, Coleman said SABA had not received any additional information beyond the details outlined in the public tender.

“Our understanding is that the National Gambling Board has commenced a procurement process for specialised services aimed at strengthening its capabilities in identifying and responding to illegal online gambling activities,” he said. “Beyond what has been publicly tendered, we have not been provided with operational timelines or implementation details.”

Website blocking is not ‘a silver bullet’

Coleman said the move signalled growing recognition that technology has a role to play in tackling illegal gambling.

“What is encouraging is that this reflects an acknowledgement that technology must form part of any meaningful enforcement strategy,” he said. “Illegal operators are highly sophisticated, operate across multiple jurisdictions and can rapidly establish mirror and replacement websites. Manual enforcement mechanisms are therefore unlikely to be sufficient on their own.”

He was also careful to frame technology as one tool rather than a fix.

“SABA has consistently advocated for a multi-layered approach that combines technology, legislation and coordinated enforcement. Website blocking, while important, should not be viewed as a silver bullet,” Coleman said. “If implemented effectively, technological interventions could become one important component of a broader South African strategy rather than a standalone solution.”

No direct dialogue with ISPA since the statement

SABA’s July statement was itself a response to a position paper published on 2 July by the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA). “Any disruption of internet services to South Africans should be done only as part of a clear legislative framework that balances the right to communicate against potential harm,” ISPA chair Sasha Booth-Beharilal said, with the paper proposing that any blocking regime be court-directed, publicly disclosed and subject to periodic review, rather than imposed by administrative order alone.

Asked whether ISPA had responded directly since SABA’s statement, Coleman said: “Not that I am aware of.”

He was careful to emphasise that ISPs should not be viewed as solely responsible for tackling illegal gambling.

“Our position has never been that ISPs should bear sole responsibility for combating illegal gambling,” he said. “Rather, we envisage a framework where appropriately authorised and legally mandated interventions are supported by clear legislative provisions and implemented in conjunction with other enforcement mechanisms.

“While there has been industry engagement around these issues, we believe the conversation should extend beyond whether blocking is possible and focus equally on how South Africa develops an effective, proportionate and legally sound enforcement model. This is ultimately a public policy question that will require collaboration between government, regulators and industry stakeholders.”

Why South Africa’s problem doesn’t map neatly onto Australia or the UK

SABA’s statement cited Australia’s 2017 overhaul of its Interactive Gambling Act, crediting the reform with more than 1,300 blocked websites and over 220 operators withdrawing from the market.

Asked what makes South Africa’s problem different, Coleman pointed first to the country’s regulatory structure.

“Firstly, gambling regulation is a concurrent competence in South Africa,” he said. “This means gambling can operate across any of nine provincial licensing frameworks, whereas many international models benefit from a single national licensing authority for online gambling.”

Coleman said this creates additional complexity when considering enforcement and regulatory coordination.

He also pointed to how aggressively illegal operators have localised their offerings – “local language support, South African payment mechanisms, Rand-denominated betting and aggressive digital marketing campaigns that deliberately create the impression of legitimacy” – as well as the socio-economic factors that can make consumers more vulnerable.

“South Africa faces significant socio-economic challenges that make consumers particularly vulnerable to marketing narratives that present gambling as an alternative source of income or financial relief,” Coleman said. “Consumer education therefore becomes critically important.”

Cross-border payment rails add a further layer of difficulty, he said, since “our enforcement framework must contend with cross-border payment systems, cryptocurrency transactions and rapidly evolving technologies that permit operators to migrate their services almost instantaneously when enforcement action is taken”.

If consumers cannot easily find illegal operators, cannot easily fund accounts, and are better informed about the risks involved, illegal operators become substantially less attractive, he said.

South Africa should therefore adopt international best practice while tailoring its response to its own legislative, economic and technological environment.

If forced to pick one intervention

Asked which intervention he would prioritise in the near term, Coleman was reluctant to suggest that any single measure would be sufficient, but identified a starting point.

“If I were required to prioritise one intervention, it would be the establishment of an effective and legally certain mechanism to disrupt consumer access to illegal gambling platforms through coordinated technological enforcement measures,” he said. “This should operate alongside an authoritative and regularly updated public register of licensed operators and an expanded consumer awareness campaign.”

His argument centred on urgency: immediate action was needed to reduce consumer exposure while wider reforms were developed.

“Every day South African consumers are being directed towards illegal operators that provide none of the protections associated with regulated gambling. Reducing accessibility immediately advances consumer protection objectives while broader reforms are pursued.”

He nonetheless cautioned against treating any single measure as a solution.

“Payment blocking without website blocking is less effective. Website blocking without consumer education is less effective. Consumer education without enforcement is equally insufficient,” he said.

“Our objective should therefore not be to identify a single solution but rather to implement a practical sequence of complementary interventions that collectively make South Africa a significantly more difficult market for illegal offshore operators to access.”

Coleman closed by rejecting the suggestion that SABA’s push is about shielding its members from competition.

“This is not a debate about protecting licensed operators from competition,” he said. “It is about ensuring that South African consumers receive the protections parliament intended when it created our regulated gambling framework. If consumers are gambling, they should do so within a regulated environment that provides responsible gambling safeguards, contributes to the fiscus and operates subject to South African law.”