MINISTRY TO HELP BLACKLIST GAMBLING ADDICTS

MBABANE – The Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs can help gambling addicts to be blacklisted from casinos.
Following the escalating devastating challenges that have been posed by gambling addiction, the ministry has mentioned that there are facilities that emaSwati with a gambling addiction can access to save themselves from the devastating effects, such as bankruptcy and suicide. Recently, a number of devastating incidents have been reported, where people lost expensive cellphones and large amounts of money due to gambling. Further our sister publication, Eswatini News reported that the Minister for Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Jane Simelane warned emaSwati as she delivered the festive season message, that gambling was not the solution to cash problems. Additionally, last year Minister for Finance Neal Rijkenberg also urged emaSwati to desist from gambling. Following the increasing incidents of gambling, the Communications and Information Officer in the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Baphelele Dlamini, highlighted a number of interventions that are in place and in the pipeline to assist gambling addicts.

Fund

Firstly, Dlamini mentioned that the ministry was in the process of establishing a Gaming Fund that will help gambling addicts. The gaming fund is set up according Gaming Control Act of 2022, Gaming Act Regulations of 2024. The fund will help to provide counselling and assist people from becoming addicts and those who are already addicts will be provided with rehabilitation services. Dlamini stated that following the passing of the regulations, the minister announced the Gaming Control Board, of which among their areas of priorities that were given to them by the minister, was to establish a fund that will help addicts. Currently, the Board is in the process of establishing the fund.

In the meantime, Dlamini said addicts and their families can visit the ministry and report their addiction. She stated that after reporting, the ministry will assist them with getting blacklisted from places of gambling such as casinos. She said after reporting and filling in the addicts’ information, it is then shared with casinos so that they cannot enter gambling centres.  “The information is placed in casinos and other accredited areas of gambling to ban these individuals from entering the places,” she said. Last year alone, 16 gambling addicts were blacklisted after reaching out for help to the ministry. “The only challenge we have is online gambling because we do not have a facility to blacklist them online,” she said.

Blacklisting

Dlamini went on to state that despite the voluntary blacklisting, the people were not helped fully as they easily come back to ask to be removed from the list of addicts. She said through the formation of the fund, stringer measures would be put in place to assist those addicts. She, however, encouraged gambling addicts and their families to use the facility in the ministry.
In the second quarter of the 2024 financial year performance report, the ministry reported that the gambling sector contributed over E6.4 million to the economy. Also, in August last year, this publication reported that in a space of one year, online gamblers in the country increased by at least 75 per cent.

This raised concerns among members of the public in some sectors who believe that this is a result of the high unemployment rate in the country, which stands at 35.4 per cent.  The Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs, at the time, reported that there were 220 000 registered online gaming users in April 2023 and 60 000 of those were active.  In this context, active is defined as a user who placed at least one bet and one deposit in a given month. In April 2024, the figure ballooned to 385 000 registered online gaming users and 73 000 of them were active. This shows an increase of 165 000 (75 per cent) online gaming users in a space of a year.  The current registered online gaming users represent at least 25 per cent of the entire population who opt for online gambling to make a quick buck.

Licence

It should be mentioned that the ministry collected over E9 million in levies from Bookmakers and E48 000 in annual licence fees in the financial year 2023/24, as revealed by the Communications Officer, Dlamini. Dlamini said in the last 12 months, the Gaming and Licensing Board received four new applications for online gaming and two were granted. Eswatini has at least four online gaming sites, which are MulaSport, eBet, 8Bet and the recently launched Diski Bet. These are dominated by students and the unemployed youth, as evidenced by anecdotal evidence. While financially-crippled working class are also gambling, anecdotal evidence shows that the unemployed youth and students are dominating the online gambling sites. Online gambling is any kind of gambling conducted on the internet and this includes virtual poker, casinos and sports betting.

One of South Africa’s biggest unsecured lenders, Capitec, said in its results for the six months to end of August 2023, that gambling transactions increased 35 per cent year-on-year ‘putting further strain on household cash flow’. An increasing number of consumers are resorting to gambling in a desperate attempt to lay their hands on cash, as the credit market in South Africa tightens in response to high bad debts, results from Capitec show. The clients rolling into debt review remained higher year-on-year, stabilising at these higher levels, as revealed in the report.

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