South Africa’s National Gambling Bill hits political storm as provinces resist centralised control

South Africa’s long-delayed National Gambling Amendment Bill has run into strong resistance from provincial authorities, with the Western Cape and other regions warning that key clauses would trample their constitutional powers, create costly duplication and drain vital gambling revenues from local budgets.

South Africa’s attempt to modernise its gambling framework has reached a critical juncture as the National Gambling Amendment Bill faces open pushback in the provinces. First introduced in 2018 and now in its “D-version”, the bill is currently before the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) under the section 76 process, which requires support from at least five of the nine provinces. Recent NCOP order papers confirm that the bill is up for consideration alongside a report from the mediation committee that tried to break earlier deadlock.

The sharpest criticism has come from the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board (WCGRB). In a recent briefing to the Western Cape legislature’s Standing Committee on Finance, the board lodged “strong objections”, arguing that several clauses “encroach on provincial competencies, create duplication, and threaten provincial revenue”. A key flashpoint is the proposal to extend the National Central Electronic Monitoring System (NCEMS) – currently used for limited payout machines – to cover casinos, bingo and betting nationwide. The WCGRB says a single national monitoring platform is “simply not viable nor desirable”, stressing that the province already operates approved and audited systems tailored to its own market. Forcing operators to migrate, it warns, would mean extra levies and replacement of compliant equipment, effectively raising costs for licensees to fund a national system.

Another contentious area is the handling of unlawful winnings. The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) wants to empower the National Gambling Regulator (NGR) to declare such winnings forfeited without going to the High Court and to redirect the proceeds to a national account. Provincial authorities counter that, under existing Western Cape law, unlawful winnings are forfeited to the provincial treasury and help fund oversight and public programmes; redirecting them to the NGR would erode provincial revenue and weaken local regulatory capacity.

The bill also tightens the powers of national inspectors, allowing them to investigate illegal gambling “with or without” provincial inspectors. Provinces argue that this wording blurs lines of accountability in an area of concurrent competence, risks overlapping raids and could actually weaken enforcement on the ground. Concerns have also been raised over proposed fixes to the long-troubled National Gambling Policy Council, with provinces warning that allowing decisions to be pushed through at a second meeting without a full quorum would undermine the consensus-based spirit of the current Act.

Supporters of the bill, including national officials and some industry stakeholders, insist that stronger central powers are needed to tackle unlicensed online operators and cross-border gambling, arguing that fragmented provincial systems have allowed illegal markets to flourish and deprived the fiscus of revenue. But with the Western Cape and other provinces signalling that they may withhold their voting mandates unless key clauses are amended, the National Gambling Bill now faces a decisive political test in the NCOP – one that will determine how far South Africa’s central government can go in re-shaping a sector where constitutional powers are meant to be shared.