July 22nd 2026
South Africans enjoyed full access to the World Football Cup – as they do to the Springboks and most important global sporting events. Who paid for such valuable access? Thanks are due to the punters betting on the outcomes. The competing Sports Betting Bookmakers and their advertising budgets cover much of costs the television programmers incur for the rights to broadcast the events. Without the punters, their telephones, internet connections and the bookmakers taking and advertising their bets, watching the games at a distance would be far more expensive- perhaps unavailable.
Sports betting has become the dominant form of gambling in South Africa. Before Covid, licensed Casinos in South Africa accounted for approximately 56% of all gambling activity and Sports betting 22%. By 24-25 the sports betting houses claimed 70% of all legal gambling and the share of Casinos had fallen to 26.5% – with the Casino operators adding on-line sports betting to their portfolios to compete better for the gambling rand.
Source; SA Reserve Bank Quarterly Bulletin. March 2026.
How much then do the punters pay to back their teams? The answer is perhaps less obvious than it may appear on the surface as the transactions with their bookmakers heat up. It depends on not how much the punters bet, rather on how much they lose collectively to the gambling houses, the bookmakers. An amount known as Gross Gambling Revenue. (GGR) That is the money with held by the book makers and Casinos after paying out the winners. The amounts returned to punters in SA are about 94% when playing games of chance in Casinos. (a 6% average loss ratio) Sports betting appears to offer less generous odds paying out less than 92% of what they took in 2025.
The notion that all gamblers must lose is therefore not accurate. A significant number of the bets laid will be winning ones – on a day, month year or lifetime of gambling – depending on the distribution of the outcomes around the average loss ratio. If the distribution around this average loss ratio of 6% were a normal one, around 27.0% of all punters would break even and 11.5 % of the punters would more than break even or better. The number of successful gamblers- those who broke even or better and who presumably had some fun along the way -would fall or rise with the GGR.
Since 2015 the Turnover (Revenue) of all licensed gambling houses in SA has risen from R358 million in 2015 to R1501m in 2024. An increase of 4.2 times. Over these 10 years GGR or what may also be described as the Gross Operating Surpluses increased from R26.3m to R74.5m, a lesser increase of 2.8 times. Perhaps a sign of a more competitive market.
The share of GGR in Gross Household Consumption Expenditures grew from 0.9% in 2015 to 1.6 per cent in 2024. The biggest loser from this shift in spending patterns was spending on other forms defined as Recreation and Culture that fell from 7% of estimated household spending in 2015 to 5.8% in 2024. That is minor shifts in consumption patterns towards gambling have occurred – inspired by changes in technology – but hopefully not enough to inspire panic – or successful attempts to interfere with essential freedoms of adults to spend as they wish.
Of the R74 billion GGR in 2024 a significant proportion was paid in taxes – that is not returned to punters. Specific taxes on the GGR, amounted to R5.8 billion (7.8% of GGR) in 2024, of which the Sports Betting houses contributed 59% or R3.4 b. It was R240 m in 2018/19. The betting houses will also be liable for income taxes on their earnings which will be less than their GGR after taxes.
The temptation to raise the specific taxes to discourage gambling will always be a force. As it is with excise taxes on alcohol or tobacco the consumption of which is much disliked. Raising such excise taxes, as we have noticed in our lawless society, may however not even lead to increased tax revenues. It most obviously adds encouragement to illegal production and smuggling. Even to the point where the prices on the streets decline as the producers of contraband compete away some of the extra margin higher tax rates wittingly or perhaps unwittingly provide them.
The price of an opportunity to gamble is the pay out ratio- that part of the bet paid back in winnings. Forcing the bookmakers to pay over more to the receiver of revenue is very likely to reduce their pay-out ratios. And therefore to encourage the illegal operators to improve their odds to encourage more flows and GGR their way. And so less for punters and the tax man and sports lovers.
But there is another new force in the gambling market that may be an even bigger threat to the bookmakers and Casinos than higher taxes on GGR. It is the increasingly important role now being played by the Prediction Markets. Polymarket or Kalshi do not make money by “being the house” and taking the opposite side of your bet. They operate more like exchanges where users trade contracts with one another betting on a huge variety of possible outcomes, sporting or financial or political. Their profits come primarily from facilitating trading activity rather than from gamblers losing. And they charge fees to do so, as would a stock or commodity exchange. Indeed Kalshi is licenced and regulated in the US as such an exchange.
One source, my helpful BOT, analysing Kalshi’s 2025 activity reported as follows. Trading volume: $22.88 billionFee income: $263.5 million- That is 263m/2288m =1.15%Which is a formidably high payout ratio – over 98% – and one very likely to encourage the odds conscious and well informed large punters- or perhaps better described as hedgers rather than gamblers. The sooner SA licences such an exchange to reduce illegal gambling the better.