South Africa’s gambling market: How to navigate an exciting landscape

South Africa has enjoyed an unrivalled status as its continent’s biggest gambling market for many years – and underlying metrics suggest the country will become an increasingly competitive player on the global scene.

While Africa as a whole is projected to generate US$11bn of gross gaming revenue (GGR) this year, according to H2 Gambling Capital, South Africa alone registered a record $3.37bn of GGR in the 12 months through to the end of March 2024 – the most recently available data. This total, which represented a year-on-year rise of 40.2%, was achieved even though the nation’s 63 million inhabitants account for just 4% of Africa’s total population.

While 37 casinos across the country generated almost $1bn in GGR in the 2023-24 financial year – led by those in Gauteng, the nation’s most populous province – it was in the online space where there has been particularly sharp growth.

Sports betting revenues leapt by 51.2% year-on-year. Online sports betting accounts for the vast majority of such expenditure – and 49% of the country’s total GGR.

However, it is increasingly recognised that sports betting is not the only interest of punters in a country that has a long-held obsession with rugby, cricket and football.

Online casino in the Rainbow Nation is booming – and Greentube, which has long been committed to establishing a truly international presence, is keen to cement its reputation as one of South Africa’s leading game providers.

Market launch

With parent company Novomatic having had a presence in South Africa for many years, Greentube decided the time was right to enter the market about a year ago after concluding that the country’s notoriously patchwork regulatory landscape could be successfully navigated.

While online casino has thrived in South Africa in recent years through legislation that was initially designed only for sports betting, Greentube is focused on developing its presence in the country through in-person offerings, as well as online.

“We started looking at the South African market quite recently, and I think it still has a lot of potential to grow in the online casino space,” says Greentube chief product and revenue officer Michael Bauer, who adds that the popularity of casinos in the country helps to underpin the increasing appetite for online gambling.

“We’ve already seen significant growth in online sports betting and we think that there is still a lot of room to grow, and on the other side Novomatic is bringing new land-based products to the market as well.”

Tech stack

Crucially, Greentube entered the market with what it described as a “revolutionary” new tech stack. Mynt, which launched at the start of 2023 to produce and supply games worldwide, comprises several modules and engagement tools and is supported by a Remote Gaming Server.

South Africa was the first regulated market where Mynt went live, with the tech stack also available in a number of other test markets worldwide.

“It gives us several advantages, and one of them is that it’s cloud-ready compared to our old stack, so we can be closer to the player, which reduces latency,” Bauer says.

“We can much more easily scale up, with a modular infrastructure and up-to-date technology at every step.

“We are producing a lot of games on Mynt and putting existing games from old stacks onto Mynt, where there is much more flexibility to produce native features – from free spins and daily jackpots to more sophisticated things like price drops and tournaments.”

“There are different routes into the market and you need to figure that out initially. Everything takes a bit longer than in Europe.”

Building momentum

While Novomatic’s well-established presence ensured there was a ready-made list of contacts to pursue in South Africa, Greentube also approached operators directly, “tackling the market from both sides” in both land-based and online gaming.

“Both approaches have worked well, and we are in touch with basically all of the main regulated operators in the market,” Bauer adds. “We make sure that we have the right games for that market on Mynt and make sure that we can get everything certified.”

Momentum has been building ever since.

Nearly a year ago, Greentube, in collaboration with its sister company in South Africa, Novomatic Africa, struck an agreement with Sunbet to launch in the market.

Then this April, Greentube went live with leading operators Goldrush and Supabets, with two more collaborations due to be confirmed by the end of this month.

Book of Ra ‘opening doors’

Bauer explains that its efforts have been aided by the huge popularity of its Book of Ra slot, which is widely available on in-person gambling machines, as well as online. This, he says, has helped to “open doors” with bricks-and-mortar and iCasino operators.

However, Greentube has numerous games that are grabbing the attention of players in South Africa, and the provider is also weighing up bringing its Italy-based subsidiary Capecod to the market, given the latter’s expanding portfolio of crash games – thought to be an increasingly popular game format in the country.

“The next step is that we need to get feedback from the players, but also from the operators, and what else they want to see from us there,” Bauer says.

“We have a very interesting mix of games coming up, including several three-pot games, which is another big trend in the market.

“We’ve just released Wukong, which is our third three-pot game – and there will be more coming up. We have Piggy Prizes, which is really smashing it in lots of markets, and version two of Wand of Riches is killing it.”

Challenges

There are hurdles to entering any market, but in South Africa, the challenges are plentiful.

Firstly, as highlighted by Bauer, there is a fragmented and – even by the standards of international gaming law – an unusually complicated regulatory landscape that has to be understood by gambling companies in South Africa.

While last year’s Remote Gambling Bill remains under review, with hopes that it will ultimately clarify licensing rules that are currently implemented by nine different provinces, there is not specific legislation for online gambling in South Africa, despite a bill being on the table since 2008.

As a result, online casino games – such as slots, roulette or draw games on licensed online gambling sites in South Africa – are treated as betting events to comply with the law.

“There are different routes into the market and you need to figure that out initially,” says Bauer.

“Also, integration-wise, everything takes a bit longer than we would see in Europe where everything is commoditised and where everybody knows the terms of a contract.

“However, the good thing is that we have a really good relationship with the local Novomatic team there, and they help us a lot.”

A launchpad for Africa

Looking to the future in South Africa, Bauer views the country as a launchpad for the continent as a whole.

“For us, the whole continent actually is interesting – it’s not only South Africa,” he says.

“The first step though is to roll out into the majority of the operators there, including aggregators, so that we get most of the online casinos covered. The aim is to create a pipeline on Mynt so that we can deliver fresh new content to the casinos there on a constant basis.

“On the land-based front, Novomatic will be bringing a lot of content and games into the market, so people will see our games and our products on all kinds of levels. We will also push more on the marketing front so we will be a lot more visible.”

More broadly, Greentube’s focus on expanding its business in South Africa encapsulates the provider’s global vision. North and South America remain major targets for growth, while in Europe, the provider wants to gain a greater foothold in markets like the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In Asia, Bauer describes the Philippines and the UAE as “interesting” markets, with significant growth potential.

“There are many, many things to do, many things to grow, and of course we need to defend our position in the existing markets as well,” he says.

However, for Greentube, it is clear that few markets have the potential to be as impactful – in the country and across a continent – as South Africa.