By Koketso Moeti
The streets of Johannesburg recently turned purple, not because of the Jacaranda trees but because of a 10km race sponsored by Hollywood Bets – a sports betting giant that has become ubiquitous across South Africa.
A few years ago, this would not have occurred. However, the landscape of gambling in South Africa has undergone a significant transformation with the growth of sports betting and the advent of online gambling. Indeed, the gaming industry is one of the fastest-expanding sectors in the country. If the existing trend continues, gambling could take up a larger share of household budgets and its harms are likely to increase. This needs to stop.
According to the National Gambling Board, the gambling industry generated R59 billion in gross gaming revenues, with R1.1 trillion spent on ‘wagering’ in the year ending March 2024. The latest Old Mutual Savings and Investment Monitor 2025 found that 52% of working South Africans gamble. The industry’s own findings reportedly show that 70% of those surveyed admitted to gambling primarily to supplement their income, with nearly half turning to gambling in an attempt to cover essential monthly expenses.
This is unsurprising in the current economic climate, characterised by a cost of living crisis, children dying of malnutrition, high unemployment levels and more than half the country falling within the upper bound poverty line.
Harms being overlooked
While some will argue that the industry creates employment, and according to the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation, contributed just over R4.8 billion in tax revenue in 2023/24, this should not negate the harmful impacts of the industry.
As the industry profits, the harms of gambling are distributed among countless households and communities. A study in Australia found that for every person with a gambling disorder, an average of six others – usually non-gamblers – are affected because of the strain placed on financial security, family interaction and social activity. A recent Lancet public health commission on gambling report similarly found that gambling-related harms affected many.
Over and above the social and health impacts of gambling, the industry extracts from the South African economy. And as its influence expands, the risks to society grow.
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The growth of the gaming sector in South Africa is intricately connected to the nation’s political past, as the first legal casinos were located in the former homelands. I’m from one of them. What used to be Bophuthatswana is one of the homelands where casino mogul Sol Kerzner had an exclusive gambling rights deal. Indeed, my own mother worked at Molopo Sun, which was part of Sun International founded by Kerzner and was the second hotel/casino complex in Mmabatho, between 1988 and 1991. She and other adults were full of warnings about gambling, from people who were absent from home, misusing household finances, to those who died by suicide. I was never sure whether these stories were meant to deter us children from gambling or if they were real.
As an adult, however, one of the things that struck me most about casinos is the inability to tell what time of the day it is and the stimulating lights and sounds in them, giving credence to the stories of my childhood. This was long before I even knew that casinos are in fact designed to keep people in them.
And this hasn’t changed. East of Johannesburg’s inner city, where I live, the casinos which have popped up here continue to stick to this model. The one in the small shopping centre my kids and I frequent, one finds people – especially young men – looking worse for wear, stumbling out at all hours.
While the number of casinos in my area and surroundings grows, overall, casinos are on the decline. Bookmakers and online gambling services have dethroned casinos as the dominant forms of gambling in South Africa.
Widespread adverting
Advertisements from the major betting and online gambling sites fill the country’s cityscapes, spaza shops and even the airports. The country’s learners have not been spared and have become billboards for these operators, with branded items regularly donated to schools.
Big spending on advertising isn’t the industry’s only tactic. Sports sponsorship has become critical to gambling operators’ aggressive marketing activities.
Betting and online gambling companies have become staple sponsors of a wide range of sporting events in South Africa. Just last year, Hollywood Bets announced its renewal of sponsoring South Africa’s iconic ultramarathon, the Comrades Marathon. Betway sponsors the Springboks – South Africa’s national rugby team and is currently the title sponsor of the Premier Soccer League, now known as the Betway Premiership.
This is not unusual. Gambling has embedded itself into European football and has become entrenched in professional sport across the world. Not only do these efforts contribute to normalising gambling, but they also obscure the connection between gambling and its harms.
There is an urgent need for well-researched, evidence-based solutions to end this problem. For starters, the South African government could lower gambling activity by restricting advertising, including prohibiting sponsorships for teams and associations with sports and educational events.
Learning from other countries
Learning from other countries is also crucial. For example in 2020, the United Kingdom updated its 2005 Gambling Act to better fit the digital era. The main goals were to protect customers by limiting marketing, setting stake limits and making operators check clients’ affordability more carefully. The country’s Premier League clubs will withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of their matchday shirts by the end of the 2025-26 season.
Canada’s Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario in Canada is another example. The body has banned advertisements driven by algorithms that promote gambling incentives, bonuses, and credits, with regulators diligently imposing fines for violations. Also prohibited is the use of social media influencers, celebrities, entertainers and athletes, alongside using “individuals who are, or appear to be, minors to promote gaming”.
While South Africa’s Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has issued tough words, these need to be given political life, especially given how slow it has been to act to prevent the crisis. The strategies employed by the gaming sector are not only normalising detrimental gambling practices but also exacerbating well-being and health disparities.
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Koketso Moeti has a long background in civic activism and has over the years worked at the intersection of governance, communication and people-power. In 2025 she was announced as a Charles F. Kettering Global Fellow. She is also an inaugural New Voices Advanced Advocacy Fellow; inaugural Keseb democracy fellow; a Mulago Foundation Rainer Arnhold fellow; inaugural Collective Action in Tech fellow; an Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity; inaugural Obama Foundation fellow and an Aspen New Voices senior fellow. Follow her on Twitter at @Kmoeti
