African Regulators Cooperation Framework: What the GRAF Rome Workshop Means for South African Players

African regulators cooperation framework: what is happening in Rome

African gambling regulators are due to start writing a joint cooperation framework on 5 November 2026 in Rome. The Gaming Regulators Africa Forum (GRAF) is hosting a one-day Regulatory Workshop at SiGMA World, and delegates will begin shaping what the organisers call the Rome Working Draft (Version 0.1), according to a SiGMA News report published on 29 October 2026. This post looks at what the African regulators cooperation framework is meant to do, what it is not, and what South African players should and should not read into it.

The workshop sits inside SiGMA World Rome, which runs from 2 to 5 November at Fiera Roma. It is a trade conference, not a legislature, so nothing agreed on the day becomes law anywhere. The point of the session is to produce a first draft that GRAF will then consolidate and take back to member regulators.

The theme of the day is "Building an African Regulatory Cooperation Framework: Advancing Harmonisation Through Collaboration". It runs in Hall 1, Room 1, starting at 11:00 with opening remarks from GRAF and SiGMA. Our reading is that the word "harmonisation" in the title is easy to misread, and we explain why further down.

The story matters to South Africans because the market they play in is cross-border by nature. Offshore casinos that accept South African players are licensed elsewhere, pay winnings through international payment channels and market through social media that ignores borders. A regulator working alone has very little reach into any of that. A group of regulators sharing information is a different proposition, even if it is still early.

Who is GRAF and why does the workshop exist

GRAF describes itself as a body that supports cooperation between gambling regulators across Africa. Its president is Mabutho Zwane. In February 2026 the forum announced a partnership with SiGMA to hold a regulatory forum at SiGMA Africa in Cape Town, and the announcement published on 12 February 2026 described it as an invite-only gathering for senior regulators, including chairpersons and chief executives.

That Cape Town forum took place on 5 March 2026 at the GrandWest Casino and Entertainment World. A SiGMA report dated 5 March 2026 says regulators, policymakers and industry figures attended, that the event was powered by SiGMA Group and 1xBet, and that country presentations came from jurisdictions including Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal and Uganda. The Rome workshop is described as the continuation of that dialogue.

It helps to be clear about who is funding the conversation. SiGMA is a commercial events company, and the March forum was powered by an operator brand. The Rome workshop is sponsored by Gaming Associates, according to the SiGMA programme description. None of that makes the discussion worthless, but it does mean the reports we are relying on come from the organiser of the event itself. We have not found independent coverage of the workshop agenda, and we say so plainly so readers can weigh the source.

The reason GRAF exists at all is simple. Africa has dozens of separate gambling jurisdictions, each with its own law, licence categories and enforcement tools. Operators and criminals move between them faster than any single regulator can follow. A forum where regulators can compare notes is a low-cost way to start closing that gap.

What the Rome workshop programme covers

According to SiGMA, the workshop has a fixed shape. The morning opens with introductory remarks and two panels, and the afternoon is spent drafting.

• Panel one: "Learning from Global Models: What Could Work for African Regulatory Cooperation?" It covers international cooperation frameworks, information-sharing mechanisms, joint investigations and enforcement models, and asks which lessons suit Africa's very different jurisdictions.
• Panel two: "Cross-Border Gambling, Illegal Markets and Regulatory Cooperation". It deals with enforcement challenges, information-sharing gaps and responsible gambling, with an industry view on how regulation works in practice.
• Methodology and sponsor slots: a presentation by Gaming Associates and an introduction to how the drafting will run.
• Drafting groups: delegates split into five facilitated groups: information-sharing protocols, legal and institutional arrangements, operational enforcement cooperation, capacity building and knowledge exchange, and communication and stakeholder engagement.
• Close: a plenary where groups report back, a keynote from Jaime Debono of iGaming Academy, a summary of next steps and a commitment pledge.

After the day, GRAF will consolidate the groups' recommendations to inform the framework. SiGMA does not say when a finished framework will be published, who must sign it, or whether it will be binding. Version 0.1 is, by name, the earliest possible draft.

Two moderators are named. Bonga Mngoma, Executive for Transformation and Economic Development at the KwaZulu-Natal Economic Regulatory Authority, is programme director, opens alongside Mr Zwane and moderates the first panel. Zoé Siwa, chief financial officer of the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board, moderates the second. Both jointly facilitate the working groups.

Which regulators are involved, and which are not

SiGMA says senior representatives of national and provincial gambling regulators and government agencies from South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Uganda and Rwanda will join the panels and working groups, together with the African iGaming Alliance and iGaming Academy from the industry side.

That list is worth reading carefully. Kenya spoke at the March forum, according to the earlier SiGMA report, yet it is not named in the Rome line-up. Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia and Botswana are not named either. We do not know whether that reflects who will attend, who was simply not listed, or who sends officials who are not senior enough to be named. It would be wrong to say those regulators are absent. The accurate statement is that the organiser has not named them.

The South African presence is provincial as well as national. Gambling in South Africa is licensed province by province, with the National Gambling Board acting as a national oversight body, which is why a KwaZulu-Natal official and a Western Cape official are guiding the day. If you want background on how that structure works, our guide to the legal position of gambling in South Africa covers it, and our earlier post on the new National Gambling Board and what it can and cannot do explains the national layer.

A cooperation framework only works if enough of the relevant regulators take part. Operators that serve several African markets from one offshore base will watch which names sign up, because that decides how much of their activity could ever be seen across borders.

Harmonisation versus cooperation: what the framework is not

The title of the workshop uses the word harmonisation, but the organiser is explicit that the session is not about aligning African gambling laws. SiGMA says the workshop concentrates on practical mechanisms for cooperation, with each jurisdiction keeping its legislative autonomy.

The March forum points the same way. SiGMA reports that panellists there agreed full coordination of licensing may be hard to achieve in the short term, while more cooperation, shared intelligence and consistent principles could still move things forward. A survey presented in Cape Town by Zoé Siwa found common priorities across regulators: stronger responsible gambling measures, better enforcement tools against illegal operators, and ways to harmonise standards without undermining national sovereignty.

In plain terms, here is our reading of what is on and off the table:

• Likely on the table: agreements to share information about unlicensed operators, ways to request help with an investigation, training and staff exchanges, and agreed channels for talking to the public and to the industry.
• Not on the table, on the evidence we have seen: one continental licence, a single tax rate, or a common law. No source we read proposes any of these.

This is analysis, not reporting. SiGMA has not published the draft, and we will not know how far the working groups went until GRAF releases something. A cooperation framework that stops at information sharing would still be useful, but it would not change who is allowed to offer casino games to South African residents.

Why cross-border gambling is the hard problem

SiGMA gives the practical reason for the whole exercise: cross-border gambling, illegal gambling and money laundering do not stop at national borders, which makes them hard for a single regulator to tackle alone. That sentence is the best summary of the case for the framework.

South Africa is a good example of the difficulty. No South African operator holds a licence for online casino games under the National Gambling Act, and the market is served by operators licensed in other places who accept South African players directly. The South African Bookmakers Association (SABA) said on 2 November 2026, as reported by TechFinancials, that illegal sites can look legitimate, accept rand deposits, even carry a South African web address, and some display licences from jurisdictions such as Curaçao or Malta. SABA's chief executive Sean Coleman said none of that means an operator is legally authorised to operate in South Africa.

SABA also pointed to Section 16 of the National Gambling Act, under which winnings from unlawful gambling can be declared forfeited to the State through a High Court order. SABA says more than R3 million in such winnings has reportedly been forfeited, including about R775,000 in 2025/26 and a further R2.3 million early in 2026/27. Remember that SABA represents licensed bookmakers, who have a commercial interest in a smaller offshore market, so its figures and framing deserve the same scrutiny as any industry group's.

The same SABA statement cites a Consumer Goods Council of South Africa report estimating R7.7 billion in annual direct tax losses from illegal gambling. We have not seen that report ourselves, so treat the figure as SABA's relayed claim.

A regulator in Pretoria or Cape Town can order a local business to stop. It cannot easily compel a company registered elsewhere, and it cannot see what other African regulators already know about that company. Shared intelligence is the cheapest piece of the puzzle, which is probably why the information-sharing group is first on the list.

What it means for South African players

For a player, the short answer is that nothing changes on 5 November. A draft framework agreed in a conference room does not alter the law, does not license any casino and does not make an offshore site legal in South Africa. If a casino says it is "approved by African regulators" because of this workshop, treat that as a red flag.

What could change over a longer period is how easy it is for regulators to trace and warn about problem operators. If information-sharing protocols come out of the process, a warning issued in one country could reach another much sooner. Players benefit from that, but only slowly, and only for operators that regulators actually name.

Until then, the practical advice has not changed. SABA's three checks are sensible even though SABA is an interested party: look at the footer of a site for the licensed operator's name and provincial authority, verify the licence with the provincial board or the National Gambling Board's verified operators portal, and do not deposit if you cannot confirm it. Our post on how to check a casino licence from South Africa walks through the licence check, and our responsible gambling page lists limits and support services.

Gambling is entertainment with real risk. You can lose the money you stake, and winnings from unlicensed gambling can be taken from you. Only play with money you can afford to lose, set deposit limits, and stop if it stops being fun. Our responsible gambling page lists where to get help if it does.

What to watch next

The first sign will be what GRAF publishes after 5 November. Look for a summary of the five working group outputs, a statement on who has endorsed the draft, and any timetable for Version 0.2 or a final text. SiGMA Africa returns to Cape Town on 15 to 17 February 2027, according to the SiGMA website, which would be a natural place for a follow-up session.

Other things worth tracking over the coming months:

• Membership: whether Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia and other regulators are formally named as participants.
• Binding force: whether the framework is a voluntary memorandum or something regulators must act on. Voluntary arrangements are easier to agree and easier to ignore.
• Enforcement outcomes: any joint action against an unlicensed operator. That would be a more convincing result than a draft document.
• South African law: separate from this process, online casino games remain unlicensed here, and any change would come from national legislation rather than a cooperation draft. Our coverage of the NGB annual report shows how the national regulator describes the market today.

We will update this post if GRAF or a regulator publishes the draft. Until then, the honest summary is modest: African regulators are talking more, they have chosen cooperation over a single rulebook, and the first written output is a version 0.1 that nobody outside the room has seen.

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