Online Gamblers Warned In South Africa

Published: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

ONLINE CASINO GAMBLERS WARNED IN SOUTH AFRICA

But don't write off Internet gaming just yet....

Newspaper headlines in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa were cautioning online gamblers to beware this week, cautioning them that their entertainment was illegal and could bring the wrath of the provincial gambling authorities down upon their heads.

The warning came from the Eastern Cape Gambling and Betting Board (ECGBB) in the Daily Dispatch newspaper and emphasised that using a personal computer as a gambling device is a criminal offence, as is gambling at an online casino.

Only premises that are licensed by the ECGBB are regarded as legal venues for gambling in the province, said board legal advisor Advocate Keith Harvey - even if the action is at Internet casinos licensed outside the country, it is still a contravention of the Eastern Cape gambling laws to gamble there - even online from one's home. Internet casinos are not allowed to advertise in the province either, he said.

"Although online gambling is a global phenomenon, it is outlawed in South Africa," a lawyer specialising in Internet law, Mujahid Adams, confirmed from Cape Town.

Adams said that while online casinos were illegal in South Africa, many of these operations were set up in countries where Internet gambling was legal.

And there were moves afoot in South Africa "to try and create a situation where the process can be regulated - but the debate is who the regulators will be".

Exempt from the ban are bettors wanting to place a bet online with a bookmaker or a totalisator that is licensed in South Africa, Adams said. This was because people have for many years been betting on horse races over the telephone, "....and using the Internet is no different."

The ECGBB has been one of the most aggressive in applying the law as it stands and has played a role in closing down three online gambling operations in the Eastern Cape, Harvey said.

Supermarket chains recently removed publications from their shelves after the board advised them the publication contained an advertisement for an Internet casino and this was illegal in the province, claimed Harvey.

He added that at least one online casino had closed down soon after the board began investigating its activities - while, on another occasion, a business using a wide area network servicing clients through Internet cafés in the province was closed down.

"On a third occasion a business using a local area network was closed and the owner paid an admission of guilt fine."

The computers were later forfeited to the State and donated by the board to underprivileged schools in the Eastern Cape.

It appears that the ban on Internet gambling is not engraved in stone, however. An advertisement by the National Gambling Board in South African newspapers in May this year called for submissions on interactive gambling so that a committee could investigate the desirability or otherwise of this form of gambling. Comments had to be in by June 30.

And the investigating committee itself was much in evidence, looking and learning at the last GIGSE conference in Montreal, Canada.