Department of Trade and Industry
The trade and industry minister, Rob Davies, has confirmed that public hearings on the gambling review commission’s report are to be held soon.
He was speaking at the opening of the international association of gaming regulators conference in Cape Town.
The commission was set up in December 2009 to review the evolution of the gambling industry since 1996.
The commission was also tasked with:
• Assessing the social and economic impact of gambling
• Determining the prevalence of problem gambling and gambling addiction
• Understanding youth gambling
• Analysing the nature of current strategies to lessen the harmful effects of gambling
• Assessing the proliferation of gambling in South Africa
• Reporting on the effectiveness of the regulatory bodies
The commission was also asked to come up with policy recommendations flowing from the findings of their review.
It spent nine months compiling the report.
The report was tabled in Parliament at the end of June 2011.
In August, the commission provided an overview of its report to the trade and industry committee in Parliament.
The report makes a number of key recommendations on how to improve the gambling sector.
Some of the recommendations include:
• Overarching policy on black economic empowerment to be developed-including proper monitoring mechanism
• Introduce five-yearly licence review for casinos
• Develop licensing guidelines for low-payout machines
• Amend legislation to define sports pool more clearly
• To professionalise grant making in terms of the national lottery
• Not to legalise dog racing
• To possibly consider regulation of bush racing as an activity
• Further research into Fahfee, cards and dice
• Propose licensing of poker tournament organisers
• Rules for poker and rake to be regulated
• To expand regulation beyond interactive gambling to include on-line betting, betting exchanges, on-line poker etc
• Licensing framework for on-line gambling to be introduced
• To develop national strategy for responsible gambling
• Clearer delineation of roles of national and provincial government
• New role for policy council-only to discuss policy
• Parliament to have oversight role over national policy
In terms of the envisaged new roles for national and provincial government, the commission recommended the following:
• Provincial role- licensing and regulation of land-based gambling activities
• National role- licensing and regulation of lottery, sports pools, on-line gambling, national registers and CEMs
According to the minister, the report calls for attention to be focused on new challenges while maintaining the “current paradigm of gaming regulation”.
One of the new challenges is online gambling.
“This is not yet legal in South Africa, and we will act against any found to be “jumping the gun”, who should also not assume that they will be the beneficiaries if we do eventually decide to licence such activities”.
The minister expressed the hope that the trade and industry committee would finalise its report before the end of the year. The commission’s report also has to be considered by the national council of provinces.
The committee is scheduled to hold hearings on the report on 28 October.
Sabinet Cape Town Office
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