swaziland times

BABANE – The number of people gambling online in the country has increased by at least 75 percent in one year.
This has caused concern among some sectors of the public, who blame the country’s high unemployment rate, currently at 35.4%.
According to information shared by the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs, there were 220,000 registered online gaming users in April 2023, of which 60,000 were active users. In this context, an active user is defined as a user who has placed a bet and made a deposit at least once in a given month. In April 2024, this number surged to 385,000 registered online gaming users, of which 73,000 were active users. This represents an increase of 165,000 (75%) online gaming users in one year. Currently, registered online gaming users account for at least 25% of the total population, who choose to gamble online to make quick money.

It is worth mentioning that the communications officer, Baphelele Vilakati, revealed that the ministry collected more than €9 million in taxes from bookmakers in the 2023/24 fiscal year and collected an annual license fee of €48,000. “In the past 12 months, the Gambling and Licensing Board received four new online gambling applications, two of which were approved,” she said.
There are at least three online gambling sites in Swaziland: MulaSport, eBet, 8Bet and the recently launched DiskiBet. Rumor has it that the users of these sites are mainly students and unemployed youth. While financially strapped working people are also gambling, anecdotal evidence suggests that unemployed youth and students dominate online gambling sites. Online gambling is any form of gambling conducted over the internet, including virtual poker, casinos and sports betting. Capitec, one of South Africa’s largest unsecured lenders, said in its results for the six months to the end of August 2023 that gambling transactions had increased by 35% year-on-year, which had “put further pressure on household cash flows”.

Capitec’s results show that as South Africa’s credit market tightens due to high bad debts, more consumers are turning to gambling to get cash. The report shows that the number of customers entering debt review remained high year-on-year and stabilized at these higher levels.Yamkalo Dlamini, a third-year student at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT), revealed that he sometimes uses the money he earns from gambling to buy goods such as electricity and groceries. He said he bets at least twice a week, using €20 each time, usually playing a game called Aviator. Dlamini said that so far, his winning rate has been high, but there have been bad days because he would lose every penny. “Sometimes I have won from €150, €200, €800 or even €1,000, and apart from the merchandise, I have used the money to pay my rent,” he said.

Dlamini said he was introduced to gambling by a friend and has been hooked ever since, but he is not as addicted as other gamblers because he sticks to his twice-weekly gambling plan. According to Dlamini, many of his peers in school are into online gambling, which is evident because he sees many of them in betting tips groups on social media, many of whom are members of the group. Roffinin Thevede, a resident of Mawalala in Mbabane, said his life changed when he won more than 200,000 euros a few months ago. Thevede worked as a driver for school students in the area around Mbabane, but after winning the lottery, he saw no reason to continue the job as he only earned more than 2,000 euros a month.

He said he invested the money in a business that yielded much more than what he was earning as a driver and even bought a car to assist with his business. “I was financially strapped and faced the same challenges every day until I decided to try my luck at gambling. Luckily, I got $250,000 and I have not been the same since,” he said. However, he did say that gambling was addictive, to the point that every time he had money, he would put a percentage of it into gambling, but this did not help him, but made his situation worse, as he lost more and more and won less. It is worth mentioning that if someone is strongly interested in obtaining an online gambling license, they should be ready to invest 1 million euros.

This is set out in the Gambling Fees Rules 2023, which are regulations made under the Gambling Control Act 2022. The Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs published these rules through a gazette on 8 September 2023. They contain the types of licences, registrations or other matters under the Act and the fees payable for each. The fees for lottery and casino licenses are LE350,000 and LE300,000 respectively, while gaming machine operators are subject to a LE200,000 license or registration fee. The purpose of these rules is to regulate the licensing process and enforce compliance by all licensees and other gaming activities to ensure that all fees are paid in accordance with the Act.