South Africa’s push for improved safe payments and player safety
As part of South Africa’s efforts to make its name as a pillar for the iGaming sector in the continent of Africa, one of the things that lawmakers and regulators have been pushing for is further strengthening of oversight and improvements to player safety and protection measures, as well as a concentrated effort to establish an effective safe payments infrastructure.
Stronger gambling oversight and better player protection
Earlier in the year, South Africa introduced new amendments aimed at strengthening oversight in this area of the gambling sector, with various aspects of the country’s gambling regulatory framework having been amended with regard to responsible gaming, player safety, compliance monitoring, and enforcement practices.
Progress was also being made towards evolving South Africa’s payments infrastructure, as it was deemed to be an important factor that needed to evolve in tandem with the growing gaming industry.
South Africa’s safe payments infrastructure
While South Africa’s iGaming industry continues to mature and improve through regulatory and legislative efforts, so too does its payments infrastructure.
As previously reported by SiGMA News, most gaming platforms support Payfast, EFT, or Ozow payments, and through the use of blockchain technologies in payments, the process of carrying out these systems would therefore be in line with existing regulations related to money laundering.
Towards the end of 2025, the South African Department of Statistics published a report in which it stated that the country’s gambling industry was “booming”, citing the National Gambling Board of South Africa. It noted that gross gambling revenue for the financial year of 2023/24 had risen by over 25 per cent from the previous year, which in turn had marked a notable increase from the two prior financial years as well.
In its report, the Department of Statistics noted that while casinos were once the most popular form of gambling in South Africa, betting, including online gambling, has taken over the sector since the beginning of the 2020s.
So, with bookmakers and online gambling services experiencing such a significant surge, the relevance of safe payment methods and a robust, reliable payments infrastructure naturally also rose in tandem.
Innovation begets innovation, and when all is taken into consideration as one full picture, it further exemplifies the potential yet to be fulfilled.
A year of growth for iGaming in South Africa
With all that in mind, 2026 has been a year of growth and reinforcement when it comes to the South African gaming sector, and the wider global industry has taken note of this, with a number of businesses moving to strengthen their presence within or even making their entry in the country’s market.
SiGMA has been among those businesses, having hosted SiGMA Africa 2026 in the South African capital of Cape Town, and has already committed to returning in February 2027 in an effort to further explore and help develop South Africa’s potential as an iGaming hub on the continent.
Cape Town calls. From 15–17 February 2027, SiGMA Africa unites regulators, operators, affiliates and investors for two days of networking, innovation and industry-defining conversations. Join the people shaping Africa’s gaming future.
