A seven-year battle between casino owners and bookmakers for the lucrative South African gambling market is set to intensify.

Betting companies, Supabets and Supaworld, are heading back to court on Tuesday next week to attempt to overturn a ruling made by Johannesburg High Court Judge Allyson Crutchfield in 2023 that barred the betting companies from offering fixed odds bets on the outcome of roulette games.

In an application lawsuit, brought by the Casino Association of South Africa (CASA), Crutchfield ruled that the Gauteng Gambling Act (Gauteng Act), which regulates gambling in the Gauteng province, only allowed bookmakers to accept fixed odds bets on the outcome of sporting events, not casino games.

The Gauteng Act defines roulette as a casino game. In short, the judge held that to offer gambling on the game of roulette, Supabets and Supaworld needed to hold a casino licence. As bookmakers, Supabets and Supaworld hold bookmakers’ licences.

In essence, Chrutchfield found it impermissible to differentiate between offering gambling on roulette and accepting fixed odds bets on the outcome of roulette under the Gauteng Act.

The betting companies are not the only party aggrieved by the Crutchfield judgment. The Gauteng Gambling Board (GGB), which oversees and controls gambling in Gauteng, had granted Supabets and Supaworld approval to gamble in roulette, even though it was aware that the betting companies were not casino games licensees.

The GGB and the betting companies hold that the National Gambling Act allows bookmakers to accept fixed odds bets on any contingency permitted under South African law.

Under Schedule 4 of the Constitution, national and provincial spheres of government have concurrent competence to pass legislation over gambling, casinos and wagering, excluding lotteries.

As a result, the GGB and the betting companies have approached the Bloemfontein-based Supreme Court of Appeal to appeal two judgments that went against them and in favour of CASA. The appeals by GGB, Supabets, and Supaworld will be heard together.

They are pinning their hopes on a full bench of five Supreme Court judges to rule in their favour. The bench that will hear the matter on Tuesday is made of justices Mahube Malomela, Nambitha Dambuza, Peter “Billy” Mothle, Petrus Arnolus Koen, and Nkosinathi Emmanuel Chili.

The legal tussle dates back to 2018, when CASA filed two lawsuits at the Johannesburg High Court to restrain and interdict Supabets and Supaworld from encroaching into their territories as casinos.

The casino lobby group launched the first lawsuit on 9 March 2018 to stop Supabets from offering fixed odds bets on on a roulette game live-streamed from a roulette table in Lithuania.

The second lawsuit was launched on 15 October 2018 to declare invalid a decision by the GGB that approved application by Supabets and Supaworld to offer fixed odds bets on roulette. This lawsuit also sought to declare unlawful the decision by the GGB to allow the betting companies to install Aardvark software system at their various betting shops in Gauteng to facilitate fixed odds betting.

Intelligent Gaming, the distributor of Aardvark software, was listed as a respondent in CASA’s legal papers alongside Supabets, Supaworld, and GGB.

The crux of CASA’s lawsuits was that Supabets and Supaworld were both holders of bookmaker’s licences, which restricted them to only taking bets on live sporting games, not casino games.

CASA launched the lawsuits to protect the turf of its members, which are major casino operators Tsogo Sun, Sun International, Peermont Global, and Caesar’s Entertainment. CASA’s members collectively control over 90% of the casino gambling market.

Supabets and Supaworld, which predominantly offer online betting services to punters, had tried to surreptitiously penetrate the casino gambling market. At some point, Supabets advertised on its website that it would start an online casino. But CASA is preventing any attempts by the bookmakers to penetrate the casino gambling market.

This high-stakes legal battle shows that gambling has become a big money-spinner in SA that is now pitting casino owners against bookmakers. But CASA wants to keep the bookmakers out of its members’ turf -- casino gambling.

This battle is raging at a time when the local gambling market is experiencing a rapid surge in online gambling post-COVID, driven by a rising number of financially-strained South Africans, mostly first-time players, who are resorting to gambling to supplement their incomes to counter the rising cost of living.

An article published on 30th April 2025 on Perpetua Investment Managers’ website states that growth in online gambling -- dominated by the likes of Hollywoodbets, Betway and Supabets -- is outpacing traditional gambling, thanks to its ability to allow punters to place bets anywhere and anytime using slick apps and convenient payment gateways.

“This creates a highly profitable and scalable business that does not require a great deal of fixed capital to grow compared to land-based operations,” the article explains.

The article also reveals that gambling incidence in SA has doubled post-COVID to 65% from 2017’s levels, with provinces like Free State, Northern Cape, and KwaZulu Natal experiencing gambling incidences that are well above 70%.

High gambling incidence translates into betting companies and casinos raking in more profits.

Last year, the gambling sector generated R59bn in gross gaming revenues (GGR), reflecting a growth of 26% year-on-year. Over the last 20 years, the sector has grown at 10% annually and post- COVID, growth has leapt to 42% per year since 2020.

This record-breaking growth in GGR is yet to show any signs of running out of steam. Earlier this month, Betway parent Super Group announced that it generated a revenue of $579.4m in the second quarter of 2025, the highest revenue the New York bourse-listed company has ever generated in a quarter.

South Africa’s Betway operation is one of major contributors to Super Group’s revenue.

Betting companies take a lion’s share of the gambling revenue, accounting for 61% of GGR while casinos take 29%. Perpetua also noted that betting companies benefit from paying less taxes than casinos.

“In 2024, casinos paid roughly 10% of their GGR as taxes whereas betting operators paid 7%, creating an unfair playing ground at a fundamental and regulatory level,” says Perpetua.

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