South Africa presses forward with online gambling clampdown

South Africa is pressing forward with its plans to clamp down even harder on unauthorized internationally licensed online gambling operators.

In 2016, South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) released a draft of its new National Gambling Policy document, detailing the government’s intention to ensure that “no new forms of gambling” would be permitted in the Africa continent’s largest gambling market.

Last Friday, DTI issued a notice of intention to introduce the National Gambling Amendment Act 2018 into parliament during the legislature’s second term of 2018. The bill’s text, which can be read in full here, further restricts South African gamblers’ ability to access online gambling products not available to them via locally licensed operators, who are limited to offering sports betting only.

Among the new restrictions are explicit warnings to financial institutions that they “must not process payment transactions for any gambling activities that are not licensed” under the country’s existing gambling rules.