South Africa's North Gauteng High Court handed down a ruling on August 20 effectively banning online gambling operators across the country.
The ruling came a a result of an action brought by the operators of Swiss based Piggs Peak casino against both the National Gambling Board and Gauteng Gambling Board's. They (Piggs Peak) were contending the GGB and NGB didn't have the jurisdiction to ban their operations within South Africa.
It's an action that's backfired and delivered a clear High Court opinion that foreign operators are banned from accepting bets from South Africans. Further, the Gauteng Gambling Board has now made a request to the country's Reserve Bank to instruct banks to block online gambling credit card payments.
Media houses and ad agencies have been told to pull all advertisements for net casinos, including the locally popular Piggs Peak and Silver Sands. Agencies failing to comply stand to incur the heavy penalties applying to the casinos...a R10-million fine or 10 years in jail, or both.
Commenting on the ruling GGB COO Edward Lalumbe said,
"Part of the reason we have been fighting online operators is because we cannot guarantee that a gambler will win. If they do, we cannot guarantee that they will be paid their winnings."
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