Trade Minister Parks Tau highlights the rise of 90 illegal online gambling in South Africa

Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau has disclosed that the National Gambling Board (NGB) has recorded at least 90 online gambling websites currently operating illegally in South Africa, all of which are registered and licensed overseas.

“The National Gambling Board did not engage with the operators of the illegal gambling websites, and operators did not block their illegal sites as the National Gambling Board did not engage with them,” he said.

Tau revealed this when he was responding to parliamentary questions from Rise Mzansi MP Songezo Zibi, who enquired about the approaches used by the NGB to identify illegal gambling websites and the engagements undertaken by the board with South African network operators to block illegal online gambling websites in the past five financial years, among other things.

Zibi had also wanted to know about the steps taken by NGB with Google Africa to remove illegal gambling websites from their search engine.

In his written reply, Tau said the NGB has two personnel who dealt with the challenges posed by the illegal gambling websites.

“The National Gambling Board has allocated financial resources to the extent of R596 000 for the identification of illegal gambling websites. This includes travel costs and legal enforcement forum meetings to be held in the 2025/26 financial year period.”

Tau also said the illegal gambling sites were identified by reliance on third-party information.

“When unlawful winnings are confiscated by third parties, the websites through which the illegal online gambling activity has occurred are mentioned in a prescribed National Gambling Board form.

“Other instances of identification of illegal online gambling websites include complaints received from the public via a dedicated NGB email address or the NGB fraud hotline.”

Tau explained that the NGB engaged with various stakeholders who are responsible for the provision of the platform for the website to operate in South Africa when blocking illegal gambling websites.

He stated that the NGB forwarded 10 websites to Google Africa for removal from the search engine in the financial year ending 2024/25.

“To date, none of the websites have been removed from the search engine, and (c) Yes, the NGB has engaged with Google SA,” Tau said.

Meanwhile, Tau confirmed that the National Gambling Board was still without a board of directors.

“The process of selecting members to serve on the National Gambling Board is under way and has not yet been concluded,” he said in response to DA MP Toby Chance’s inquiry.

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