South African gambling revenues rise in fiscal 2016-17

The National Gambling Board of South Africa released the local gambling industry’s fiscal 2016-17 numbers to end March this week, noting that overall revenue was up 3.8 percent year-on-year at SAR 27 billion (US$1.2 billion). The results do not include the national lottery.

Despite the overall increase, the report notes that land casino revenues, which contribute 66.4 percent of all revenue, slipped 1.8 percent y-o-y at SAR 17.9 billion. Punters spent 1.2 percent less on the land casino slots and table games, reducing overall turnover by 73.2 percent.

By contrast, sports and horse racing saw a year-on-year gain in revenue of 14.3 percent at SAR 5.1 billion, with sports betting doing especially well with revenues up 22 percent at SAR 2.6 billion. Sports betting turnover soared over 40 percent to SAR 32.8 billion.

Horseracing revenues also improved, up 12 percent to SAR 1.1 billion, although tote racing was unimpressively flat at SAR 1 billion.

Elsewhere, limited pay-out machine (LPM) revenues were up 14 percent at SAR 2.7 billion, contributing 10 percent of overall market revenues. Offline bingo revenues reached SAR 1.3 billion, a y-o-y rise of 37 percent.

Online casino gambling is prohibited in South Africa, although online sports betting is permitted.