In the worst decision in South Africa since allowing vuvuzelas in the stadium during the World Cup, online poker is now banned in the country. A ruling by the North Gauteng High Court on August 20 banned online poker and all forms of online gambling in South Africa. The decision protects the Gauteng Gambling Board’s monopoly on gambling in the nation by removing online gambling as competition.

The Gauteng Gambling Board (GGB) has been fighting for a ban on online gambling for a while to protect the interest of their brick and mortar casino industry, with us worth $2.2 billion. Last week, Judge NB Tuchten ruled in favor of the GGB and banned online gambling. As a result, anyone caught gambling online or playing online poker in South Africa can face a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $1.36 million fine.

The new anti-online gambling ruling would punish not only players, but also online casinos, financial institutions and internet service providers involved in online gambling transactions. Advertising for online gambling in the country is also now illegal.

Though the GGB is excited by the ruling – warning that they will have any violators arrested – not everyone is ecstatic. Piggs Peak, for instance, intends to fight the ban and appeal to a higher court. Piggs Peak runs both a brick and mortar casino in Swaziland and an online casino website. Lew Saul Koor, Operations Director of Piggs Peak, stands in defiance of the GGB, stating that “until the appeal has been heard and the outcome determined, our business will continue as usual as agreed with the Gambling Boards.”

The most common sense solution to the dispute would be for the South African government to legalize online gambling but require the casinos to pay a fee or a tax for operation in the country. After all, South Africa needs more money and generally they are all for anything that generates an income for them. The online gambling ban seems to show that they think they lose more money to online casinos than they would earn by regulating them. Only time will tell.

Tags: online casino, online gambling, online gambling laws, online gambling legislation, online poker ban, onliner poker, South Africa online casino, South Africa online gambling ban, vuvuzelas

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 7:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.