Illegal Gambling in South Africa: SABA Demands Faster Action

South Africa’s illegal gambling market has become too large to keep discussing without action, according to the South African Bookmakers Association. The trade body says the country already has the legal groundwork it needs. What it lacks is a system built to enforce those laws at scale. SABA is calling this gap prohibition without enforcement, and it wants regulators to close it fast.

The numbers behind the warning are steep. According to National Gambling Board figures, illegal platforms generated R5 trillion in 2025, a slice equal to roughly 3.75% of the R75 trillion produced by the regulated sector. That gap matters more in a country where close to 39 million people, about 60% of the population, live below the upper-middle-income poverty line. Every rand that flows to an unlicensed operator is a rand that skips consumer protections entirely.

A Six-Point Plan for Illegal Gambling South Africa Enforcement

SABA CEO Sean Coleman says the association has spent months building its case. The work included a legislative gap analysis, benchmarking against other regulatory markets, and public awareness campaigns run alongside the National Gambling Board. Out of that process came a six-point national strategy aimed squarely at illegal gambling in South Africa.

The plan calls for clearer legal definitions so enforcement agencies know exactly what they are chasing. It also pushes for expanded powers to block illegal websites, disruption of the payment channels that keep those sites running, and legal action against the facilitators behind them, including payment providers and affiliates. SABA wants tighter scrutiny of influencers who promote unlicensed platforms to their followers, and it wants a centralized, multi-agency structure so provinces and national bodies stop working in isolation.

SABA has thrown its support behind the National Gambling Board’s move to appoint a provider tasked with blocking illegal gambling sites. The timing is deliberate. Officials want the blocking system active around high-traffic periods such as the 2026 World Cup, when betting activity typically spikes and illegal operators tend to chase the extra volume.

The Scale of the Problem

This is not the first time SABA has sounded the alarm. A 2023 report commissioned from Yield Sec found that illegal operators accounted for around 62% of all online gambling activity in the country, pulling more than R50 billion away from the regulated market each year. The same report estimated that roughly 16 million South Africans used illegal gambling platforms over a 12-month period, a figure that shows just how deeply the unlicensed market has embedded itself.

SABA points to other jurisdictions as proof that enforcement can work. Australia’s site-blocking regime and the United Kingdom’s financial control measures both feature in the association’s pitch as models South Africa could adapt. Neither system eliminated illegal gambling outright, but both gave regulators tools that go beyond warnings and press releases.

Provincial Fragmentation Adds Friction

Coleman has also flagged a structural problem that sits underneath the enforcement debate. South African operators currently have to navigate nine separate provincial gambling frameworks, each with its own rules and compliance demands. That fragmentation slows down legitimate operators and creates gaps that illegal platforms can exploit.

Sportingbet South Africa co-founder Tyrone Dobbin has raised a similar concern, calling for the nine provincial authorities to coordinate more closely rather than operate as isolated regulators. SABA’s proposed multi-agency structure would attempt to bridge exactly that divide, giving national and provincial bodies a shared framework instead of nine competing ones.

Whether regulators move on SABA’s proposals before the World Cup remains to be seen, but the pressure is unlikely to ease. With billions of rand and millions of vulnerable players tied up in the illegal market, SABA is betting that coordinated enforcement, not further discussion, is what finally shifts the numbers.