National Lottery Licence Court Ruling: What Sizekhaya, Ithuba and the Minister's Next Move Mean for South African Players

What the court decided about the National Lottery licence

The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has set aside the award of the Fourth National Lottery and Sports Pools licence to Sizekhaya Holdings. The ruling was handed down on Monday 2 November 2026, and the Mail and Guardian reported it on 3 November. Anyone searching for the National Lottery licence court ruling will find the same core facts across the coverage: the licence award is invalid, the minister must decide again, and the lottery keeps running in the meantime.

The court found that Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau illegally brought in a separate ministerial committee to reassess the bids outside the prescribed tender process. The licence agreement between the minister, the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) and Sizekhaya was also declared invalid. The matter goes back to the minister, who must reconsider the award without relying on the committee's report or its recommendations.

The Mail and Guardian names the judge as Norman Davis and says the court ordered Sizekhaya, the minister and the NLC to pay the legal costs that Ithuba and the Ringeta Consortium incurred. Those two parties challenged the award. TimesLIVE adds that the court described the problem in the process as a technical issue and the M&G adds that the Economic Freedom Fighters intervened in the case.

This is a lottery case, and it needs saying early that it is not an online casino ruling. It does not change which casino sites accept South African players, and it does not touch the legal position of offshore operators. We cover it because licensing decisions in South African gambling are now being tested in court, and readers of this site follow that wider story closely.

How the Fourth National Lottery licence was awarded

The background matters, because the court's finding is about process rather than about who is the better operator. Eight bidders competed for the Fourth National Lottery and Sports Pools licence. IOL reports that the minister announced Sizekhaya as the successful bidder in May 2025, for an eight-year licence, replacing Ithuba Holdings, which had run the lottery since 2015.

The M&G says Sizekhaya took over the National Lottery on 1 June 2026. IOL notes that Sizekhaya is partly owned by the JSE-listed gambling group Goldrush Holdings and is led by KwaZulu-Natal businessmen Moses Tembe and Sandile Zungu. Ithuba and the Ringeta Consortium were unsuccessful bidders, and they took the award on review.

In plain terms, the tender had a set route. The NLC, which is the body that regulates and oversees the lottery, ran the evaluation. The reports say the minister then used a ministerial committee to reassess the bids, and the court held that this extra step was not part of the prescribed process. The award that followed could not stand because of it.

One point is worth keeping straight. The court did not decide that Sizekhaya is unfit, and it did not reopen the bidding. It decided that a step in the decision path was unlawful. That is a narrower finding than a headline such as "lottery licence scrapped" suggests, and the order that followed shows the court knew it.

The timeline in short

A dated list helps here, because several outlets use different reference points. Everything below is as reported by the sources listed at the end of this post.

• 2015: Ithuba Holdings begins operating the National Lottery.
• May 2025: the minister announces Sizekhaya as the successful bidder from eight applications, for an eight-year licence.
• 1 June 2026: Sizekhaya takes over running the National Lottery from Ithuba.
• 2 November 2026: the North Gauteng High Court sets aside the award and declares the licence agreement invalid, with the declaration suspended.
• 3 November 2026: the ruling is reported by the Mail and Guardian and TimesLIVE, and Sizekhaya gives its response on Moneyweb radio.
• Within 12 months: the minister must reconsider the award, in two six-month stages as the court set out.

Notice how little of that is about the quality of anyone's bid. It is a story about the route the decision took. A bidder can have a strong proposal and still lose an award if the process around it was not followed, and the reverse is also true.

The court order: suspended invalidity and two six-month windows

The most practical part of the judgment is the suspension. According to the M&G and TimesLIVE, the court suspended its declaration of invalidity for two consecutive six-month periods. IOL describes the overall reconsideration window as 12 months.

• First six months: the minister reconsiders the award and makes a fresh decision, disregarding the ministerial committee's report and recommendations.
• Second six months: if he decides not to award the licence to Sizekhaya, this period allows negotiation and conclusion of a new licence agreement and transitional arrangements with a new operator.

Why suspend the order at all? Our reading is that a lottery cannot simply stop. Draws, ticket sales and prize payments run on a continuous operating contract, and a gap would hurt retailers and the organisations that depend on lottery funding. Sizekhaya says the court expressly suspended its order to protect the public interest, which includes good causes funded through the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, such as old-age homes and children's homes.

We have not read the judgment itself, because we could not retrieve the court document this session. Every detail on the order is therefore as reported by the outlets linked here, and where reports differ slightly on wording we have used the more cautious description.

What Sizekhaya and Ithuba have said

Sizekhaya said it was disappointed but noted that the court made no adverse findings against it on the grounds raised by Ithuba and Ringeta, as TimesLIVE reported. It added that the issue concerned a technical matter in the award process and that tickets can still be bought, games will be drawn on schedule and prizes will be paid as usual. The M&G says Ithuba welcomed the judgment.

In a Moneyweb radio interview published on 3 November, Sizekhaya chief operating officer Fundi Sithebe went further. She said the court found no fault with the licence award or with the company's bid, that the minister acted in good faith, and that Sizekhaya has not been disqualified. She also said the bids stay valid as submitted, that the eight-year term would reset once the 12-month process ends, and that the Powerball draw was going ahead that night.

Those are Sizekhaya's statements and its reading of the judgment. Ithuba and Ringeta, who won the review, will see it differently, and the court's own order is the authority on what was decided. We attribute the claims to the company rather than treating them as established facts.

One further point from the interview is useful context. Sithebe argued that a change of operator takes a long time to organise, since this would be the fourth operator to take over. That is a business argument the minister will have to weigh. It is not a finding of the court, and we have no independent evidence on how long a transition would take.

What happens next, and what we do not yet know

The honest answer is that several things are open. The minister has to take a new decision within the window the court set, and the reports do not say whether he will appoint an external committee, rely on the NLC's earlier evaluation, or take another route. The reports do not give a public statement from the minister or the NLC on the ruling, and we have not found one.

• Appeal: none of the coverage we read reports whether any party will appeal. We do not know.
• Who decides: the court directed the minister to decide again, so the outcome could be the same operator, a different bidder, or a new process.
• Timing: the suspension runs in two six-month periods, so a clear answer may take until well into 2027.
• Funding for good causes: the court signalled that this must not be interrupted, but the reports give no figures on funds at risk.

Watch for three things: an official statement from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, any application to appeal, and the NLC's own communication to retailers. We will update this page only when a new development is reported by a source we can read.

What this means for South African players

If you play the National Lottery or Powerball, nothing changes today. Tickets, draws and prize payments continue, and the court deliberately kept the licence agreement operating while the minister reconsiders. Keep your tickets and check results through official channels as normal.

If you play at online casinos, this ruling is not about you directly. The National Lottery and the online casino market sit under different parts of the National Gambling Act framework, and no South African operator holds a licence for remote casino games. Offshore sites that accept South African players are not licensed here. Our South Africa legal guide explains the difference between "not licensed in South Africa" and "accepts South African players".

The wider lesson is about process. Courts are checking whether gambling licences are awarded the way the rules say. That should make regulation more predictable over time, but it can also cause delay and uncertainty. The same question of who decides and how matters in the debate on tax and oversight that we followed in our piece on the proposed national online gambling tax, and in the participation figures we covered in our look at South Africa's online gambling ranking.

Lottery tickets are gambling too. Play for entertainment, set a budget, and never stake money you need for bills or food. Our responsible gambling page lists limits, self-exclusion options and where to find support.

Lottery rules versus casino rules: why the difference matters

Readers sometimes assume that anything gambling related in South Africa sits under one set of rules. It does not. The National Lottery is a separate, state-supervised product with a single national licence, and the money it raises is meant to fund good causes through the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund. Casinos, bookmakers and online betting are handled through different licensing arrangements, mostly at provincial level.

For online play specifically, the position stated across this site stays the same. No South African operator currently holds a licence for remote casino games, and the market is served by offshore-licensed operators that accept South African players. "Accepts South African players" does not mean "licensed in South Africa". If you are choosing where to play, read our South Africa overview before you register anywhere.

The lottery ruling touches none of that. What it does show is that the licensing system is not a rubber stamp. If you want a calm way to think about it, treat this as a reminder to check who regulates the product you are using, what happens to your money if something goes wrong, and which body you would complain to.

Our reading: why lottery licensing cases matter beyond the lottery

This section is our analysis, not reported fact. A national lottery licence is one of the largest regulated gambling contracts in the country, and a court finding that the award process was unlawful shows that discretion at ministerial level has limits. For a sector that depends on licensing decisions, that is a reminder that the process is part of the product.

It also raises a practical question for any future gambling licence, including any move to regulate online casinos in South Africa. If a ministerial step outside the published process can unwind a decision a year later, regulators and bidders alike have reason to follow the written rules exactly. That is slow and sometimes frustrating, but it protects the public and the integrity of the system.

We would not read the ruling as a verdict on Sizekhaya, Ithuba or any other bidder. The reported finding is about the committee step. Whoever receives the licence after reconsideration will still have to run the lottery well, and players are best served by uninterrupted draws and reliable prize payments, which is exactly what the court protected.

Finally, we are cautious about the numbers and claims floating around in social media posts about the size of the licence. We did not fetch a reliable figure for its value this session, so we do not repeat one.

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