Betting the future: how online gambling is breaking South African communities

South Africa is good at counting money. We measure GDP, tax take and turnover with clinical precision. But there are sums that do not appear on balance sheets: the cost of broken families, the wage earned by a mother that vanishes in a night, the school fees sold for a bet. The gambling industry sells exhilaration while externalising the social bill. Online gambling is not merely an entertainment sector; it is a social hazard dressed as convenience, and the evidence is hard to ignore.

The scale is staggering

The numbers are stark and they demand political attention. The gambling economy now collects more than R75 billion a year in gross gaming revenue in South Africa. When turnover across the sector is laid bare it exceeds R1.5 trillion, a figure that should make regulators sit up and wonder whose welfare these vast sums actually serve. Online betting accounts for roughly 60% of that activity, driven by smartphone penetration and app design that normalises betting as a daily habit. The state does collect tax revenue, more than R5,8 billion, but that is a narrow frame compared with the human costs that the industry’s business model accepts as collateral damage.

Why people get pulled in

Online gambling thrives because it exploits hope, convenience and the psychology of loss-chasing. Young people, in particular, are pushed into the market by sports betting and aggressive advertising that frames wagering as a skill and a social ritual. Apps remove friction: registration, deposit and play happen within minutes on devices that most households already own; more than 80% of gambling interactions now involve smartphones.

The industry funds relentless marketing that masks risk with glamour. For many, betting starts as a harmless thrill; for too many it accelerates into dependence that corrodes livelihoods and relationships.

The social damage is deeper than the revenue figures

Financial metrics alone cannot capture what is lost when households erode under addiction. Increased household debt, disappearing groceries, children pulled out of programmes, partners driven to borrow or to steal to cover losses. These are not rare anecdotes but recurring patterns reported across communities and clinics.

Schools and youth are affected; gambling shows up in distracted learners and young men whose earnings are siphoned into bets rather than skills and small businesses. Crime linked to problem gambling becomes part of the social ledger and the welfare burden grows faster than tax receipts can respond.

The industry’s promise of jobs, a headline often used to justify lax regulation, must be weighed against the fragility of those jobs and the scale of harm. About 30 000 people are directly employed in gambling, with a further 100 000-plus in related work, yet these are fragile roles in a sector that profits from high-volume, low-margin consumer behaviour that can swing swiftly and ruinously for households.

The industry is not innocent

If we are to be blunt: the gambling industry is comfortable with risk when that risk is borne by customers. Operators design products to maximise engagement through bonuses, free spins and personalised nudges that encourage repeat play and chasing of losses.

Advertising is often misleading, framing betting as a path to quick uplift rather than a behaviour with real harm potential. Platforms resist meaningful self-regulation because their business model benefits from scale and addiction. When an industry’s profits depend on high-frequency use, voluntary restraint is unreliable. Regulation and enforcement must do the heavy lifting the industry refuses to do.

Corporate social responsibility cannot substitute for binding rules. Self-exclusion features exist but are often buried, hard to activate and uneven in effectiveness. Deposit limits are presented as optional rather than mandatory. The result is an asymmetric relationship: operators optimise conversion, communities shoulder social costs, and the public sector picks up the welfare tab.

We have the tools to change direction

This is not a call to criminalise play; it is a demand for moral and regulatory seriousness. First, advertising must be tightly constrained. Restrictions on time, content and frequency of gambling adverts are essential to protect young and vulnerable people.

Second, deposit and staking limits should be mandatory defaults, with safe-profiles for young adults and evidence-based thresholds that reflect local incomes and living costs. Third, self-exclusion mechanisms must be robust, auditable and enforced across platforms with penalties for operators that fail to comply.

Regulators should require mandatory, independent harm monitoring paid for by the industry and scaled to community impact. Revenue should be hypothecated to fund treatment, counselling and family support programmes so that the social costs are not simply left to public health budgets.

Cross-border coordination is also imperative because online platforms operate across jurisdictions; harmonised rules can prevent regulatory arbitrage and offshore operators evading responsibility.

Finally, taxation policy should not be an excuse for inaction. Yes, the state collects revenue, but those funds can and must be used to underwrite harm-minimisation programmes, education and enforcement rather than simply flow into treasury coffers without accounting for social restitution.

A test of governance and civic ethics

Allowing unfettered online gambling is a test of how we balance commercial freedoms against public welfare. The industry will argue that regulation stifles business and jobs. That claim rings hollow when juxtaposed with a steady stream of stories from clinics, families and schools where gambling has degraded prospects and dignity. Responsible governance means we legislate where markets fail to protect citizens. It means prioritising the long-term health of communities over short-term revenue.

If we take our social compact seriously, then we must insist that the gambling sector fix what it breaks and that the state use its regulatory muscle to prevent avoidable harm. Anything less is a political surrender to an industry that monetises despair and dresses it as entertainment.

We can regulate with nuance while preserving entertainment for those who gamble responsibly. We must do both. South Africa cannot continue to count turnover while ignoring the human shortfall behind the figures. The price of inaction is paid in bread, school fees and trust. The cost is too high.

(Dube is a noted political economist, businessperson, and social commentator on Ukhozi FM. For further reading and perspectives, visit: http://www.ncodube.blog. His views don't necessarily reflect those of the Sunday Tribune or IOL)

SUNDAY TRIBUNE