{"id":842495,"date":"2025-11-10T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=842495"},"modified":"2025-11-10T08:52:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T06:52:01","slug":"this-is-what-south-africans-are-cutting-to-feed-their-gambling-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/842495\/this-is-what-south-africans-are-cutting-to-feed-their-gambling-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"This is what South Africans are cutting to feed their gambling habits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While South Africa is experiencing a surge in sports betting, with political parties and social welfare groups sounding the alarm on a growing crisis, data from the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) shows that it’s mainly other forms of entertainment that are getting cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online sports betting has been thrust into the spotlight this past month after the Supreme Court of Appeal took some bookies to task for unlawfully running online casino games<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the case dealt with legislation in Gauteng, the National Gambling Board (NGB) interpreted the ruling to have a national impact\u2014something that other betting groups have taken exception to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result has been a renewed focus on online betting in South Africa, with its explosive growth, as well as increased attention from the media, political parties, regulators, and social welfare groups calling for stricter regulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The headline figure often highlighted is the record gambling turnover recorded in 2024\/25, which rose to R1.5 trillion, up from R1.1 trillion the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This represents 0.8% of South Africa’s GDP, with sports betting being the main driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the BER, the main concern is that South Africans are using money meant for food and education to bet, thereby driving deeper into debt during an online betting frenzy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the group noted that “the reality is a little less scary than the big numbers suggest”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yes, gambling turnover of R1.5 trillion constituted an eyewatering 31% of total consumer spending last year, but 95% of this money was consumers\u2019 recycled winnings that had been bet again<\/strong>,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, gambling operators took home only 5% (circa R75 billion) of this as Gross Gambling Revenue (GGR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s not to say this isn’t a huge spike in activity. GGR has also leapt up rapidly, from R52.3 billion to R75 billion over the past year, at a growth rate of 26.2% on top of the 25.7% jump the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is almost entirely due to the explosion of online betting, which, since 2020, has taken over from casinos as the dominant form of gambling in South Africa, the BER said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, GGR has almost doubled its share of total consumer spending from 0.9% in 2022 to 1.5% in the year ending March 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

What South Africans are really sacrificing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But in the context of what South Africans are spending their money on, the BER said that the average household still spends proportionately more on beer than it does on gambling and betting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When looking at household spending, gambling falls under entertainment and recreation when data is compiled by Stats SA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking this spend from before the Covid-19 pandemic to now (2019\/20-2024\/25), spending on this segment has declined from 7.2% to 5.8% over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is despite GGR as a share of consumer spending in the category increasing from 12.3% pre-Covid to 26.7% now, the BER noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This suggests that increased spending on betting is coming at the expense of other forms<\/strong>
<\/strong>of recreation and entertainment spending\u2014such as on books, magazines, and cinemas\u2014rather than cutting into spending on food & beverages, clothing & footwear, healthcare or education<\/strong>,” the economists said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BER stated that this can be inferred because the share of spending on those more essential categories has increased or remained stable in the years compared to 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In short, the data shows that households are spending a smaller share of their overall budgets on recreation and entertainment, despite the explosion in sports betting within the entertainment category.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BER stressed that this is reflective of the average household, and that there are certainly some households that will indeed be gambling away money needed for essentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other datapoints, like savings and financial health monitors run by finance groups, show that a significant percentage of households (as high as 40%) gamble regularly in the hopes of covering expenses or debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some take out loans and credit or get into serious debt to fund their gambling activity\u2014and this is becoming more prevalent among lower-income earners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BER said this aligns with international research covering the same topic, pointing to a growing problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So while the big data shows that the impact of online betting may appear benign, that does not mean that it is not damaging to households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NGB and other groups are growing concerned that unbridled betting regulations, particularly advertising, are normalising gambling in society, allowing people to form bad habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the call has been for greater regulation, with recommendations that the government:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Prohibit gambling adverts during live sports broadcasts and family viewing times;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Prohibit ads featuring (or targeted at) young people;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Cap the number of video spots per commercial break;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Ban pop-up and auto-play gambling ads; and<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Restrict major sport sponsorships.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Recommendations have also been made to increase taxes on the sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    While taxes on the bets themselves are difficult, as they can be shifted to other jurisdictions, the BER noted that taxes on the payments\u2014made locally\u2014could be more effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “The point is not to confiscate (the betting) thrill, but to keep today\u2019s excitement from becoming tomorrow\u2019s eviction notice,” the BER said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “What we should not do is let addictive gambling behaviour, and the associated costs, continue to go unchecked.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A breakdown of household spending shows that the rise of sports betting isn’t necessarily cutting into essential spending, but other sectors are taking the pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":807005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[14829,24044],"class_list":["post-842495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-ber","tag-sports-betting-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842499,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842495\/revisions\/842499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}