South Africa agrees streamlined gambling legislation

South African legislators have adopted legislation which re-aligns the countries regulatory regime but have fallen short of increasing the scope of legalised egaming in the country.

Members of the parliamentary Committee on Trade and Industry agreed the National Gambling Amendment Act (2018) on Wednesday, only after trimming the legislation down from a more comprehensive bill proposed by the country’s Department of Trade and Industry earlier this year.

The bill has been reduced to three specific technical issues; shifting regulatory powers from the National Gambling Board to the new National Gambling Regulator, improving administration at the National Gambling Policy Council and widening the scope of the National Central Electronic Monitoring System to monitor all forms of gambling activity for the first time.

New penalties against international egaming firms operating without a license in South Africa are also set to be introduced.

Other issues, including the greater legalisation of egaming, lottery betting and betting on horseracing were sidelined to enable the committee to “address existing governance challenges speedily”.

However, the committee was keen to stress that the legalisation of other gambling strands is on the agenda, with chair Joanmariae Fubbs saying that they are “serious” about addressing them.

However, Fubbs said the committee’s timetable “would not have allowed for an effective interrogation of these matters”, but that the revised act “will pave the way for more comprehensive and holistic amendments to the gambling regulatory framework.”

The Act now passes to South Africa’s president Cyril Ramphosa, who will sign the bill into law.