Last updated: July 2026. Figures are the NGB's audited national gambling statistics for the financial year 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025.
South Africans staked R1.50 trillion with licensed gambling operators in FY2024/25 — and roughly R1.43 trillion of that came back to players as winnings. Operators kept R74.5 billion, which is 4.96% of everything wagered. Provincial authorities collected R5.81 billion in gambling taxes and levies.
Those four numbers get reported constantly and almost always without the context that makes them mean anything. This page works through the National Gambling Board's own audited statistics, explains what "turnover" does and does not measure, and shows the single strangest fact in the dataset: the province where South Africans do most of their betting is not where most South Africans live.
The Headline Numbers
| Measure | FY2024/25 | What it is |
|---|
| Turnover | R1 500 660 968 064 | Total rand value staked, including re-staked winnings |
| Gross gambling revenue | R74 498 495 925 | What operators kept after paying winnings |
| Taxes and levies | R5 812 135 921 | Collected by the nine provincial licensing authorities |
| Operators' share of turnover | 4.96% | GGR ÷ turnover |
| Tax as a share of GGR | 7.80% | Taxes ÷ GGR |
Gross gambling revenue grew from R59.3 billion the previous year to R74.5 billion — a rise of 25.6% in a single financial year.
The R1.5 trillion figure needs a caveat
You will see "South Africans gambled R1.5 trillion" in a lot of headlines. That is not wrong, but it is widely misread, and the NGB itself flags why on the slide the number comes from.
Turnover is the rand value of money wagered, including "recycling" — the Board's own word — meaning amounts staked more than once. Win R500 on a Saturday, stake it again on the Sunday, and R1,000 of turnover has been recorded from R500 of money. On a product where most of each stake is returned as winnings, the same rand can be counted many times over a year.
So R1.5 trillion is not R1.5 trillion of household money going into gambling. The figure that answers that question is gross gambling revenue: R74.5 billion is what the industry actually retained from players across the whole year. Turnover measures activity; GGR measures cost. Anyone quoting the trillion as the amount South Africans "lost" has multiplied the real number by twenty.
Where the Money Goes, by Product
| Mode | Turnover | GGR | Share of GGR | Returned to players |
|---|
| Betting | R1 125.6bn | R51.97bn | 69.8% | 95.38% |
| Casinos | R292.8bn | R16.65bn | 22.3% | 94.32% |
| LPMs | R54.7bn | R4.15bn | 5.6% | 92.41% |
| Bingo | R27.5bn | R1.73bn | 2.3% | 93.72% |
| All modes | R1 500.7bn | R74.50bn | 100% | 95.04% |
Betting has become the South African gambling industry. At R51.97 billion it is 69.8% of all gross gambling revenue, more than three times the casino sector, and it generates 75% of national turnover. A decade ago casinos were the dominant mode by a wide margin.
The NGB disaggregates betting further, and this is where the shift shows up plainly:
- Online betting: R44.46 billion — 85.5% of all betting revenue, and 59.7% of the entire South African gambling industry's GGR.
- Retail betting (shops, on-course): R7.52 billion — 10.1% of industry GGR.
Nearly six rand in every ten the whole industry earns now comes from online betting.
One clause on the arithmetic, and then we will not repeat it: every one of these products is built so the operator retains a small slice of each stake, which is where the industry's R74.5 billion comes from. The proportion returned to players is high — around 95% across all modes — but it is below 100% by design, which is why gambling is entertainment you pay for rather than a way to make money.
The Provincial Map Makes No Sense — Until It Does
Here is the finding worth the page. Turnover by province, FY2024/25:
| Province | Turnover | Share | Betting GGR | Share of betting GGR |
|---|
| Mpumalanga | R623.0bn | 41.5% | R21.33bn | 41.0% |
| Western Cape | R402.5bn | 26.8% | R19.52bn | 37.6% |
| Gauteng | R179.7bn | 12.0% | R4.66bn | 9.0% |
| Limpopo | R122.3bn | 8.1% | R3.96bn | 7.6% |
| KwaZulu-Natal | R100.5bn | 6.7% | R1.52bn | 2.9% |
| Eastern Cape | R35.0bn | 2.3% | R0.19bn | 0.4% |
| North West | R18.8bn | 1.3% | R0.42bn | 0.8% |
| Northern Cape | R9.7bn | 0.6% | R0.29bn | 0.6% |
| Free State | R9.2bn | 0.6% | R0.08bn | 0.2% |
Mpumalanga has roughly 4.7 million residents — about 8% of the country — and accounts for 41.5% of all money wagered in South Africa. Gauteng, with more than twice the population and by far the largest economy, records 12.0%. KwaZulu-Natal, home to the country's biggest betting brand by retail footprint, records 6.7%.
This is not a map of where South Africans gamble. It is a map of where operators hold their licences.
Online betting is licensed in only six of the nine provinces — the Western Cape, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape — and in practice the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board and the Mpumalanga Economic Regulator have become the two authorities that issue online bookmaker licences at scale. A bet placed on a phone in Soweto is recorded in the province that licensed the bookmaker, not the province the punter is sitting in. Between them, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape account for 78.6% of national betting revenue.
That single fact quietly invalidates a lot of published commentary about "gambling hotspots" and per-province problem-gambling rates built on turnover data. The provincial split measures licensing geography. It does not measure where people bet.
Casino GGR, which is genuinely tied to physical venues, behaves exactly as you would expect and confirms the point: Gauteng 45.0%, KwaZulu-Natal 21.3%, Western Cape 16.2%.
Tax: R5.81 Billion, and Who Collects It
| Mode | Taxes and levies | Share | As % of that mode's GGR |
|---|
| Betting | R3.42bn | 58.9% | 6.59% |
| Casinos | R1.72bn | 29.5% | 10.32% |
| LPMs | R0.53bn | 9.0% | 12.66% |
| Bingo | R0.15bn | 2.5% | 8.42% |
| Total | R5.81bn | 100% | 7.80% |
Gambling tax is levied and collected by the provincial licensing authorities, not by SARS, and the rate differs by province and by mode. Betting is taxed most lightly relative to what it earns — 6.59% of its GGR against 10.32% for casinos and 12.66% for LPMs — while producing the majority of the revenue.
Following the licensing geography again, the Western Cape collects the most gambling tax of any province at R1.74 billion (30.0%), ahead of Mpumalanga at R1.47 billion (25.3%) and Gauteng at R1.16 billion (20.0%).
This is the backdrop to National Treasury's November 2025 discussion paper proposing a 20% national tax on online gambling GGR. Set against an effective provincial betting tax of 6.59%, that proposal is not an adjustment — it would be a step change in the sector's tax burden. It taxes operators, not your winnings; we cover what that does and does not mean for players on our gambling tax page.
How We Checked These Numbers
Everything above is taken from the NGB's National Gambling Statistics for the Financial Year Ending 31 March 2025, published 9 October 2025 — the audited release, sourced by the Board from the provincial licensing authorities. We used the primary document rather than press coverage of it, because the press coverage rounds R74.5 billion to "R75 billion" and drops the recycling caveat entirely.
We validated every breakdown before publishing it. For each of the three measures — turnover, GGR and taxes — we summed the nine provincial figures independently and checked the result against the total stated in the source. All three reconcile: turnover to the rand, GGR and taxes to within R1 and R2 respectively, which is rounding in the published percentages. We did the same for the four gambling modes and for the online/retail betting split, which sums to the betting GGR total exactly.
That step matters because these figures arrive as a slide deck, where a label and its number can drift apart in extraction. Anything that failed to reconcile is not on this page.
One limitation, stated plainly. These are FY2024/25 figures, covering the year to 31 March 2025. They are the most recent audited national statistics available. They also cover only licensed gambling — money staked with unlicensed offshore operators appears nowhere in them, and estimates of that market run into the tens of billions of rands. The NGB's figures are a floor, not a total.
The Short Version
- R1.50 trillion staked, but that counts re-staked winnings many times over — it is not household spending.
- R74.5 billion is what operators actually kept, up 25.6% year on year.
- Betting is 69.8% of the industry, and online betting alone is 59.7% of it.
- About 95% of everything staked came back to players as winnings across all modes.
- Mpumalanga and the Western Cape hold 78.6% of betting revenue because that is where the online licences are, not because that is where the betting happens.
- R5.81 billion in tax, collected provincially, at 7.80% of GGR.
If you want to check that the operator you use appears on the right side of these statistics, our licence register records the licence number and issuing board for every operator we cover.
FAQ
How much do South Africans gamble each year?
In the 2024/25 financial year, R1.50 trillion was staked with licensed operators and R74.5 billion was retained by them as gross gambling revenue. The second figure is the better measure of what gambling actually costs South Africans, because turnover counts winnings that are staked again.
What is the difference between turnover and gross gambling revenue?
Turnover is every rand wagered, including money won and then re-staked — the NGB calls this "recycling". Gross gambling revenue is what operators keep after paying out winnings. In FY2024/25, GGR was 4.96% of turnover.
Which gambling sector is biggest in South Africa?
Betting, by a wide margin. It produced R51.97 billion of GGR, 69.8% of the industry total, of which R44.46 billion came from online betting alone. Casinos were second at R16.65 billion.
Why does Mpumalanga have the highest gambling turnover?
Because bets are recorded in the province that licensed the operator, not where the player is. Mpumalanga and the Western Cape issue most of South Africa's online bookmaker licences, so 78.6% of national betting revenue is booked there. It does not mean people in those provinces gamble more.
How much tax does gambling pay in South Africa?
R5.81 billion in taxes and levies in FY2024/25, collected by the nine provincial licensing authorities rather than SARS. That is 7.80% of gross gambling revenue, with rates varying by province and by gambling mode.
Where do these gambling statistics come from?
The National Gambling Board's audited National Gambling Statistics release for the year ending 31 March 2025, published on 9 October 2025, compiled from data supplied by the provincial licensing authorities. They cover licensed operators only.
Figures are the NGB's audited statistics for FY2024/25 and cover licensed operators only. Published for information; this is not financial advice. 18+ only. Gambling involves financial risk; bet for entertainment and never stake more than you can afford to lose. If gambling is no longer fun, contact the National Responsible Gambling helpline on 0800 006 008 or SMS HELP to 076 675 0710.
