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Online Casinos No Threat

The South African government is focusing efforts right now on forming online casino gambling legislation that will protect South African players while controlling any societal ills associated with the activity. The recent bill that was recently discussed at a committee hearing for the Department of Trade and Industry was met with negative feedback from the Casino Association of South Africa (CASA), while others were much more receptive to the Bill’s proposals to license and regulate the online casinos that operate in SA.

The Casino Association of SA has concerns that once legalized the online casinos will take a significant amount of business from the land-based casino industry. Land-based gambling in SA has very well-formed and strict regulations, and CASA expressed concerns that the recent bill for internet gambling was not as well thought-out and did not adequately address possible issues once online casino gambling is legalized in SA.

In light of these concerns, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Deputy Director, Fungai Sibanda, commented that “there is no apparent threat to the land-based casino [industry] from interactive gambling.” The DTI also released figures that suppot the assertion that online casinos will not adversely affect land-based gambling interests. The department anticipates that online casino gambling will only account for roughly two percent of the gambling population. While land-based gambling on the other hand accounts for 80 percent of gambling population.

The bill is still fairly new, but much what the bill proposes is backed up by a research study into gambling in South Africa. Some in the government are very hesitant to allow online casinos into the country – even going so far as to compare interactive gambling with prostitution, but wisely the government has looked to the global online casino industry to demonstrate that the only way to truly protect players form internet gambling is to license and regulate. Otherwise players just circumvent the government and instead gamble in an unregulated and dangerous environment that is not protected from criminal activity.