South Africa's online gambling market is worth about R63 billion in 2026, according to the 2027 iGaming Trends report from SoftSwiss, co-authored with WorldGaming. Citing H2 Gambling Capital data, the report says 84% of gross gambling revenue is generated onshore and names South Africa as one of Africa's markets to watch.

SoftSwiss, which supplies software to gambling operators, based the report on a survey of more than 500 industry experts and analysis of over 480,000 media headlines.

For scale, that R63 billion is about 40% of the R159 billion South Africans are expected to spend on online retail this year. The wider picture from the National Gambling Board is steeper still: total gross gambling revenue reached R74.5-billion in 2024/25, up 25.6% in a year, with online accounting for more than 85% of betting revenue.

The tax regime is about to change. Provincial authorities currently tax online betting at 6% to 9% of gross gambling revenue, and National Treasury has proposed an extra 20% national tax on top, which would take the combined rate to between 26% and 29%. Treasury expects it to raise more than R10 billion a year but says the main aim is to discourage problem gambling.

The legal position is untidy, however. Online sports betting through provincially licensed bookmakers is lawful, while online casino gambling is still illegal nationally, because the 2008 law meant to regulate it was never brought into effect, yet Treasury proposes taxing both.

SoftSwiss's own survey of 1,000 South African adults adds a finding worth noticing: 43.2% overall wanted tools to limit their spending, but among unemployed respondents that fell to 35.3%, even though they were the group most likely to say they would use a windfall to pay off debt.

IT-Online carried the report, including SoftSwiss deputy chief marketing officer Alexandra Kavelich's view that the next edge in iGaming will come from regulatory readiness, secure payments and risk management rather than content, with operators learning from fintech, e-commerce and streaming. WorldGaming's Robin Harrison says scale can get an operator into more jurisdictions but does not guarantee success.

Moonstone covered Treasury's discussion paper and its argument that online gambling crosses provincial borders and cannot be fully administered provincially. IOL points to Kenya, where a 20% levy on wagers led operators to pull out and tax revenue to fall.

The Kenya comparison needs care, because Kenya taxed the amount wagered while South Africa's proposal taxes gross gambling revenue, what the operator keeps after paying out winnings. That is a gentler base and closer to what larger markets use.

The harder problem is the one in SoftSwiss's own survey: the people with the least room to lose are the least interested in limiting what they spend. A tax raises the cost for operators and may push some activity offshore, but it does nothing for that group directly.

For anyone in payments, fintech or consumer lending, this market is already a large source of transaction volume, and the combination of a rising tax, an unresolved legal grey area and scrutiny of harm makes it a sector to handle carefully rather than one to chase.

You might also like our piece on the 2026 draft tax bills, the shake-up of SA's payment system, and what SA investment tax takes from gains and dividends.

Get more SA tech and business news and subscribe to The Open Letter.