Opposition to the National Treasury’s proposed 20% national tax on online gambling is growing sharply, with leading industry bodies and legal experts warning that the plan is unconstitutional, economically destructive and likely to drive South African consumers toward unregulated offshore operators.
The proposal, outlined in Treasury’s recent discussion paper would require both licensed and unlicensed online betting operators to pay a national tax of 20% on gross gambling revenue (GGR).
For locally licensed bookmakers it has been noted that this tax would be added on top of existing provincial gambling taxes and VAT, pushing their effective total tax burden to nearly 40%.
The South African Bookmakers’ Association (SABA) has cautioned that the tax would “comfortably outstrip the rates applicable in all but four” of the 50 international jurisdictions reviewed in Treasury’s own study and would be “unsustainable” for the domestic industry.
