ICASA, Mobile Networks and Payments: Could Regulators Reach Offshore Casinos in South Africa?

What the communications minister said about gambling on mobile networks

Communications Minister Solly Malatsi has told Parliament that he will talk to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) about gambling that is reached through mobile networks. The answer was a written reply to questions from Rise Mzansi MP Makashule Gana, and it was reported by MyBroadband and Business Day in the week of 5 October 2026.

The wording matters, so it is worth being precise. Malatsi said he supports protecting South Africans, and low-income households in particular, from the harm caused by irresponsible gambling. He then said he would engage ICASA on what can appropriately be done within its regulatory mandate where electronic networks are used to make gambling products easier to reach. According to the same report, those talks would look at whether existing consumer protection measures are enough and whether more action is needed.

He also made a point that cuts the other way. Where a mobile network or platform is only a channel through which people buy gambling vouchers, he said, that does not by itself make the underlying product a service that ICASA regulates. In plain terms, the minister has opened a conversation and, in the same breath, noted a limit on what the telecoms regulator can do.

No ban, blocking order, deadline or draft rule has been announced. If you have seen a headline suggesting that gambling on phones is about to be switched off in South Africa, it is running ahead of the facts. Our short news brief on the reply sets out the same position.

Why the phone is not the legal line

A gaming law attorney, Wayne Lurie, gave Business Day the clearest explanation of why the device is the wrong place to draw a line. His argument is that a bet does not become unlawful because it is placed on a cellphone, and that using a mobile network does not give the communications minister the power to decide which gambling products people may reach. He added that the minister has not announced a ban, and that looking at what ICASA can lawfully do is a legitimate exercise.

Lurie pointed to how the Constitution divides the work. Legislative authority over gambling and wagering sits with national and provincial government. The National Gambling Act and provincial laws then set up licensing, supervision and enforcement, with provincial gambling authorities and the National Gambling Board each carrying their own statutory duties. A transaction that happens over a mobile network does not move those duties to ICASA, in his reading.

He gave two examples that make the logic easy to follow. A football bet placed with a licensed bookmaker, and authorised for online acceptance, does not become unlawful because the customer uses a phone. Equally, prohibited interactive gambling does not become lawful because it is accessed on a different device. What decides legality is the product, the law that applies and what the operator is licensed to offer.

That framing fits what the National Gambling Board says on its own website. As quoted by MyBroadband, the Board states that online or interactive gambling is not legal in South Africa, with the exception of online sports betting through licensed bookmakers. It cites section 11 of the National Gambling Act, which says a person must not engage in or make available an interactive game except as authorised under that Act or another national law.

The same report adds that large bookmakers such as Hollywoodbets, Betway, Sportingbet, Sunbet and SuperSportBet maintain that they do not offer interactive gambling, arguing that customers bet on the outcome of game results. MyBroadband notes that several of them have, in its words, tacitly admitted in their own adverts that they offer interactive gambling. That dispute is separate from the ICASA question, but it shows how contested the edges of the law still are.

The channel the bookmakers keep pointing at: banks and payment providers

If the device and the network are not the legal line, where might a pressure point be? The South African Bookmakers Association (Saba) has argued for months that it is the payment rail. The Business Day report from July quotes Saba chief executive Sean Coleman saying that each time a South African player bets on a foreign-based site that is not licensed locally, an unlawful gambling activity occurs, and that this is facilitated by, among others, the player's bank.

Coleman's description of the chain is simple. South African banks, third-party payment providers and credit card institutions act as a conduit between the player's bank account and the foreign operator's bank account, and without that conduit the transaction could not happen. That is an industry body's argument, made by a group whose members would benefit if offshore competition were squeezed, so treat it as one side's case rather than settled law.

The numbers behind the argument are also industry numbers. Research commissioned by Saba from YieldSec, as reported by Business Day, found that illegal platforms make up about 62% of the country's online gambling market. The July report adds that industry research shows these sites have attracted about 16 million South Africans and more than R50 billion in gross gambling revenue a year. We have not seen the underlying study, so these are figures to read with care.

The reply from Malatsi concerned vouchers bought through mobile networks, which is a narrower question than card or bank payments. Lurie warned that restricting one way of buying gambling vouchers might not reduce harm at all. If people can buy the same products with another payment method, a limit on one channel may just change how they pay, and it could push some away from licensed, supervised operators towards unlicensed ones.

That warning is worth taking seriously. A rule that is easy to get around can end up hurting the legal sector more than the illegal one. It is also a reason to expect regulators to be cautious before they touch payment channels.

What the National Gambling Board is already doing about offshore sites

Network and payment talk is happening alongside a more direct move. According to the Business Day report from July, the National Gambling Board has issued a request for expression of interest from service providers that could block illegal online gambling websites. The document says blocking would help suppress illegal gambling as envisaged by the National Gambling Act.

The Board accepts in that document that enforcement is hard. It says South Africa struggles to act against illegal interactive gambling because the operators are based in foreign jurisdictions, and that they increasingly use online platforms, internet cafes, digital wallets and cryptocurrency transactions to avoid detection. The same report says websites would be blocked each time an illegal operator tries to offer gambling to local players, and that the data collected would be shared with law enforcement.

We have covered that process in detail in our earlier post on the blocking plan. The relevant point here is that site blocking and the ICASA conversation are different tools. Blocking targets the website. A network or payment measure would target the route money or traffic takes. The Board has publicly gone to market for the first; the second is still an early conversation.

The wider package is moving too. The July report says Treasury has proposed a 20% tax on the online gambling industry, which critics say would push punters to illegal platforms. It also says the government is considering a ban on betting advertisements. MyBroadband adds that Trade Minister Parks Tau has said a new bill on online gambling is expected to go to Cabinet in late 2026, and that the Board is drafting advertising regulations. Our post on tax and advertising limits covers those two items.

How Lagos and Spain are leaning on the pipes

South Africa is not the only place where regulators are asking who carries gambling traffic and money. Two recent examples show different ways of doing it, and neither is a South African rule.

In Nigeria, the Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority has given telecoms operators, mobile network operators and value-added service providers 30 days to verify the licences of gaming businesses on their platforms, according to Focus Gaming News. The notice also asks them to submit transaction records so that outstanding gaming taxes and levies can be assessed, to stop onboarding operators without valid licences or authorisations, and to suspend existing services that do not qualify. The authority says it will issue statutory notices and pursue enforcement after the period ends. That makes the network the checkpoint, which is close to what Malatsi's wording gestures at, although Lagos has state level gaming law to back it up.

In Spain, a royal decree published in the official gazette (Spain's official gazette, Real Decreto 813/2026 of 7 October) requires gambling operators to make sure that the holder of the payment method used for deposits and withdrawals is the holder of the gambling account. That puts the duty on the operator and the payment trail rather than on a telecoms regulator.

These two examples are not a template for South Africa, and the legal systems differ. Our reading is that they show a pattern: when licensing law runs out at the border, regulators look for the businesses that sit on the route, such as telecoms, aggregators, banks and payment firms. South Africa's difficulty is that an offshore operator is outside licensing law altogether, so any duty would have to be placed on a local intermediary, and the law that would allow that does not exist yet.

Our reading: what could realistically change for South African players

This section is analysis, not reported fact. Based on the sources above, here is how we weigh the possibilities.

• Near term, very little. A minister promising talks with a regulator, in a written reply, is not a rule. The minister himself said the voucher channel does not make the product an ICASA matter. Nothing in the reports above sets a date or a mechanism.
• Site blocking is the nearer measure. The Board has already asked the market for blocking providers. If that goes ahead, the effect would be on whether a given offshore site loads, not on how you pay.
• Payment rules would need law first. A duty on banks or payment providers would most plausibly arrive through the new gambling bill, which the Trade Minister expects to reach Cabinet in late 2026. Cabinet is only one step before Parliament.
• Advertising is likely to move first. Draft Board advertising rules, with responsible gambling warnings and limits on reaching mostly under 18 audiences, have been described publicly. That is something you may notice before anything about networks.

None of this makes offshore casinos legal for operators in South Africa, and none of it makes playing them a crime for players according to anything we have found in these sources. The distinction we draw across the site is between "not licensed in South Africa" and "accepts South African players". Our South Africa legal overview explains it, and every review page repeats it.

What to do now, and what to watch next

For players, the useful steps do not depend on what the regulators decide. Treat gambling as paid entertainment that can cost you real money. Decide a budget before you start, in rand, that you can afford to lose, and do not use borrowed money or grant payments. Keep your own records of deposits and withdrawals, because an offshore site gives you no South African consumer protection if something goes wrong. Our responsible gambling page lists support services, including the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation.

If you deposit by EFT or a pay-by-bank method, read the rules of the method itself first. Our payment methods overview and the FICA verification guide explain what identity checks to expect, and why the name on your bank account should match the name on your casino account.

Here is what we will be watching:

• Whether ICASA says anything in public after its talks with the minister.
• Whether the National Gambling Board appoints a site blocking provider and how it reports results.
• Whether the online gambling bill reaches Cabinet before the end of 2026, and if it says anything about payment providers or networks.
• Whether the draft advertising regulations are published for comment.
• How the Lagos notice plays out after its 30 days, as a live test of putting networks on the hook.

We will update our news pages as each of these happens. Until then, the honest summary is that the phone is where South Africans gamble, but it is not yet where the law has decided to act.

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