REGULATORY NEWS
Boylesports & Tsogo Sun’s Own Sportsbetting Operation Set for South African Launch European sportsbetting operator Boylesports appears set for a South African launch via a Western Cape Gambling Board licence later this year.
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hile no official announcement has been made, industry scuttlebutt puts the launch at immInent stage with a largescale operational hiring process ongoing behind the scenes.
Gaming for Africa will bring more on this as information becomes available, along with unrelated rumours that Tsogo Sun via its Tsogo Sun Alternative Gaming arm is also furiously building its own
sporstbetting site, tentatively believed to be called PlayTsogo as a separate sportsbetting and wholly-owned operation aside from its major stake in bet.co.za - also set for a launch later this year.
Kenya’s Betting via M-Pesa Hits Sh169.1bn in One Year Kenyans spent Sh169.1 billion (approx.$1.43bn) to place bets through Safaricom’s M-Pesa in the year to March, underlining the gambling craze that has become a national pastime, this according to a recent report by Business Daily Africa.
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hThe telecoms operator’s disclosures show that the value of bets jumped 23.8 percent from Sh136 billion a year earlier, defying a government clampdown on gambling through the imposition of higher taxes both on the companies and punters. Safaricom, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and betting firms are the biggest beneficiaries of the growth and intensity of betting activities, pocketing billions. The telco’s revenue from betting rose 40 percent to Sh5.98 billion last year, beating sales of more than a third of firms listed at the Nairobi bourse. This disclosure came on a day when Safaricom posted a 1.7 percent drop in net profit to Sh67.49 billion, hit by investments in the yet-to-start Ethiopian operations and additional tax payments. Safaricom booked a loss of Sh4.8 billion from the Ethiopia firm, where it has a 55.7 percent stake, and saw its tax payments jump 39.1 percent to Sh34.7 billion after the lifting of tax relief attached to the Covid-19 economic stimulus package. The company is betting on business lines such as data and M-Pesa to offset the stagnant revenues from mobile calls amid a saturated market. The volume of bets funded from M-Pesa accounts surged 39 percent to 732.2 million,
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/ Gaming for Africa / gfamagazine.com
signalling a growing gambling addiction. The growth of betting comes despite the government trying to curb the activity through higher taxation and increased regulations. Betting is popular among young people – employed as well as the jobless — who see it as offering a game-like thrill besides an opportunity to make quick money. While a few punters get lucky and win large sums of money, the activity represents missed opportunities and losses for participants
as a whole. The Sh169.1 billion wagered in the review period, for instance, is enough to buy 5.3 billion shares of Safaricom, equivalent to a 13.2 percent stake in the country’s most profitable firm. Such a stake would earn dividends of about Sh7.3 billion annually, based on the telco’s latest distribution of Sh1.39 per share for the year ended March. Continued on Page 32
