South Africa and Egypt step up action against offshore illegal gambling

Authorities in South Africa and Egypt are moving against unlicensed gambling activity, with South Africa’s National Gambling Board (NGB) preparing to work with international regulators to target offshore operators. For PSPs and gambling merchants, the point is simple: market access is getting tighter, and the line between licensed and offshore supply is becoming harder to ignore.

1. In South Africa, the NGB told parliament this week that it plans to work with international regulators to combat illegal gambling, according to BusinessDay. Lungille Dukwana, Chief Executive Officer of the NGB, said: “We are seeing that there are external operators in our space, and those are not licensed in South Africa, and that creates a challenge of its own because, in that specific instance, they are coming from the online casinos, and they are offered by other countries.”
2. The scale is not small. The NGB estimates that some R5trn (£303.8m) is generated by illegal gambling platforms. That represents around 3.75% of the R75trn generated by the legal, licensed South African sector in 2025.
3. South Africa’s regulated betting and gaming market is already large and growing. Gaming revenue in 2023/24 rose 25.7% year-over-year to R47.2bn. That is the backdrop for the current enforcement push: more money in the legal market, and more attention on where the illegal volume is coming from.
4. BusinessDay also reports that some of the platforms the NGB is targeting are based in the UK and its overseas territory of Gibraltar, which remains a major international hub for gambling domiciling and licensing. Dukwana also identified the Philippines and Malta as locations where some of these operators are based.
5. Egypt is also part of the broader crackdown on offshore gambling, with authorities taking aim at unlicensed and illegal activity alongside South Africa. The article does not provide the same detail on Egypt as it does for South Africa, but the direction is the same: more cross-border pressure on operators that sit outside local licensing regimes.

For high-risk PSPs, the practical takeaway is that offshore licensing is not a shield if the target market’s regulator decides to coordinate with counterparts abroad. South Africa’s case is a useful reminder that payment flows, operator location, and local licensing can all become enforcement issues at the same time.