CASA urges government to harden illegal gambling stance

The Casino Association of South Africa (CASA) has called on the national government to harden its stance on illegal gaming activities and unlicensed casino venues.

Whilst there are naturally laws in place to prohibit illegitimate gambling these are doing little to stop the proliferation of the practices according to CASA CEO, Themba Ngobese.

“Unfortunately, there will always be people who believe that illegal gambling and illegal casino activities are somehow victimless crimes but nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.

“Illegal gambling operations are eroding the revenues of licensed casinos and thereby negatively impacting everything from job security, corporate social investment budgets to their ability to support the economy through taxes.”

As a result the association has called on the government to make a deliberate and concerted effort to enforce laws more ardently in order to protect the regulated gambling industry and wider public.

Ngobese added that due to the current tax climate in South Africa many legitimate gaming businesses operate on incredibly fine margins where even small drops in revenues can have far reaching consequences.

“In the year ended March 2017, our members experienced losses in revenue of almost two per cent, attributable in large to aggressive illegal gambling activities – that may not sound like much – but for an industry that contributes almost $420m (R6bn) in taxes and levies, a few percentage points can have a massive knock-on effect,” he said.