New legislation in South Africa concerning online casinos has been a long time coming, and even though the latest bill is closer to where it needs to be, others think there is still more work to be done before any gambling bills will pass through the government. The South African government, specifically the Department of Industry and Trade (DTI), recently held a committee meeting to discuss the National Gambling Amendment Bill NGA Bill. And some representatives from online casinos in the remote gambling industry attended the meetings as a way to judge the status of legalizing internet gambling activities in South Africa.

The NGA Bill has some strong supporters in the online casino gambling industry – the bill calls for strict licensing and regulations of internet gambling sites allowed to offer services to South Africans. Most industry analysts agree that the NGA Bill is a step in the right direction, but there are still drawbacks that are still left to be addressed says a representative for the online casino betting site Betfair. Betfair’s legal counsel, Elliott Kernohan, attended the hearings and noted one particular aspect of the NGA bill that “needs to go back to the drawing board.”

Kernohan notes that though the Chief Executive at CASA, Derek Auret, is concerned ensuring that “the standards that his constituency has had to meet are applied across the board,” in actuality, from the point of view of the online casino industry, “it’s slightly bigger than that.” Kernohan elaborates on where the NGA is lacking, These requirements and these protections that are to be provided for South African players really need to be imposed right across the online gambling space. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an online casino or whether it’s online poker or sports betting or anything in between, it’s the perceived risks of transacting through the Internet that need to be addressed, and that’s what we think needs to go back to the drawing board.”