South Africa opens public comment on draft amendments to National Gambling Regulations

Government Gazette No. 54106 sets out proposed updates that tighten how the National Register of Excluded Persons is administered and enforced, while also refreshing technical re-certification rules for gambling machines.

South Africa’s Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has published draft amendments to the National Gambling Regulations, 2004 in Government Gazette No. 54106 dated 10 February 2026, with public comments due by 27 March 2026.

A major focus of the draft is the voluntary exclusion system. The proposals formalise the option for an excluded-person notice to be submitted in hard copy or electronically using Form NGB 1/1, including a minimum photo requirement, and they set a clearer distribution and enforcement workflow across operators and provincial licensing authorities.

Under the draft, operators would be required to forward exclusion notices to the National Gambling Board on the day they are received, while the Board would have five working days (excluding weekends and public holidays) to capture the notice in the national register and circulate it to licence holders and provincial licensing authorities. Operators would then have five working days to prepare and implement their administrative processes, and the exclusion would take effect 10 days after submission to the Board.

The proposals also introduce a 90-day compliance clock: licence holders would need to submit internal control measures to their provincial licensing authority to demonstrate how exclusion is enforced in venues and how non-participation is controlled, with provincial authorities in turn submitting registers and control measures to the Board.

Beyond the register mechanics, the annexed forms expand the operational expectations around responsible gambling: they include provisions aimed at stopping targeted marketing to excluded individuals after notification, and they set a higher bar for removal from the register by linking reinstatement to compulsory rehabilitation treatment and supporting documentation.

If adopted, the changes would make exclusion enforcement more time-bound, more traceable, and harder to treat as a “paper-only” safeguard—pushing operators and provincial regulators toward demonstrable controls rather than informal best efforts.