Acquisition is cheap but retention is hard: Charting churn for South African iGaming players

South Africa is Africa’s fastest growing iGaming market, but also one of its most leaky when it comes to retaining players. While the sector grew 26.5% in the 2024/25 financial year, there appears to be an expensive structural problem when it comes to retention, which has been masked by cheap acquisition. Data provided by South Africa-based iGaming design and development agency Vegas Kings has shone a light on some of the biggest issues when it comes to player churn.

Despite having the highest daily playtime globally of 26.9 minutes on average, only a tiny fraction of new players to a mobile gaming app are still active by day 28 after sign-up. From 17.6% being retained after day 1, to 3.5% being retained after a week, only 0.88% are still active four weeks after being acquired. Evidently, intensity of play does not necessarily result in loyalty to an operator.

Piotr Cerlak, co-founder of iGaming data platform Gamblitude, provides insight on the acquisition-retention issue across the whole continent. He explains: “In African markets, we see a clear gap between acquisition and engagement. Only a small fraction of new signups convert into active players, significantly lower than in more mature markets.

“This suggests strong initial interest, but noticeable friction at the activation stage.”

Significantly, 78% of South African players surveyed for payments industry research in 2025 said that fast and easy withdrawals influenced where they placed bets. This puts withdrawal friction alongside low switching costs and economic & liquidity pressure as the three most critical churn drivers. The black market, bonus hunters and problem gamblers are the other most notable factors in Africa.

As per the National Gambling Board (NGB), who produced a socioecomonic study last year, there’s been a five-fold increase in problem gambling in the past eight years. With many problem gamblers earning under 15,000 South African rand ($900) per month (the national average is 31,058 rand [$1,880]), this creates an involuntary churn cohort, which can distort operators’ retention metrics.

While sports betting represents 70% of GGR in South Africa, sportsbook-only players represent the highest churn-risk cohort of players, this represents a structural mismatch making it difficult for operators to retain as many players as they’d like.

Odds comparisons and attraction to event-specific bonus offers are factors here. This ties in closely with the other ‘very high’ risk cohort – bonus-led first time depositors. Casino cross-sold players are the least likely to churn, but with casino GGR declining 4.1% YoY in 2025, while sports betting grew 60%, operators are not converting sportsbook players to casino at sufficient scale.

Operators also have a responsibility to watch problem gamblers closely, and ensure they churn involuntarily before they hit financial strain.

It’s been a lively few years for South Africa iGaming with time spent on the FATF grey list and the proposal of the remote gambling bill. The regulatory environment appears to be on a journey, shifting from growth through promotions, to growth through product quality.

Speaking about the whole of Africa, Cerlak explains: “On the retention and churn side, player activity is also more volatile. Month-to-month swings tend to be higher than the global average, indicating a less stable player base and higher churn sensitivity.

“Overall, the demand is there, but both conversion and retention remain more challenging than in established markets.”

South Africa has experienced huge growth when it comes to total online GGR this decade, with figures from H2 Gambling Capital showing an increase from €328.44m in 2020 to €3.09 billion in 2025.

Now may be the time for operators to focus on building retention advantages before regulation fully settles down. If they can provide top-class payment systems, reduce dependence on bonuses and try to cross-sell sportsbook players to casino products, they could overcome the problem of cheaply acquired players churning so fast.

Data in this iGB dashboard is taken from a player churn intelligence report, provided by Vegas Kings and sourced from the NGB Annual Report FY2024/25, National Treasury (SA) 2025 Discussion Paper, Stitch (South Africa) 2025, InfoQuest/TrendER 2024 + 2025 surveys, Perpetua ESG Report 2025, Absa Merchant Analytics H1 2025, GameAnalytics 2025 (Africa), FATF October 2025 Plenary, Remote Gambling Bill B11-2024, ICLG Gambling Laws SA 2026, Yield Sec/SABA, Optimove/iGaming Daily (Feb 2026), Blask/iGamingToday CAC benchmarks 2025-27, Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling, Oct 2025, Gauteng 2026/27 Budget Speech (Finance MEC) and NGB Advertising Compliance Notice, Dec 2025.

JS

James Swann-Phillips

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