Invasion Of The EBTs Reaches South Africa

The South African province of KwaZulu-Natal is seeing a battle between the casino owning interests of Mr Vivian Reddy and those of Galaxy Bingo.

Casino Boss Battles Bingo

● Do EBTs constitute an unfair competitor?

● Will bingo replace South African poker rooms?

● Will casinos close in face of machine invasion?

Whilst many eyes upon South Africa at present are focused on the fate of Oscar Pistorius, famous para-Olympian and girlfriend murderer, there are some which have taken in the amusingly incestuous war of words going on between gambling concern operators in KwaZulu-Natal as various vested interests attempt to win over support for their position in what is, after all, quite a tight gambling market. It might seem a storm in a teacup but the outcome could have far reaching effects, as well as being a sign of things to come.

It begins with Galaxy Bingo making an application to the KwaZulu-Natal Gaming and Betting Board for permission to place 3000 electronic bingo machines within the bingo halls it already has license for that are situated in malls across the province. The granting of this application is strenuously opposed by local casino owner who accused them of wanting to turn the malls into “mini-casinos” and become an unfair form of competition to the two casinos in the local vicinity.

“Collectively, they earn over R2-billion from Kwazulu-Natal.” Said Vivian Reddy, chairman of the Sibiya Casino at a hearing on the matter, “It’s greed for them to want to saturate the gambling industry. Gambling is over-saturated in KwaZulu-Natal. With the addition of those machines, you are going to have over 67000 slots machines right at the people.” The proximity and accessibility of these EBTs (electronic bingo terminals) may well be a significant factor lowering the number of people taking advantage of South African gambling laws and visiting a physical casino.

“When we applied for a gambling license, we were told to spend billions on our casinos, but here these people with the EBTs are renting out space in shopping centers with rent of R100000 and they will employ a few people and they are going to get the same revenue as us.” Reddy continued hitting gambling news headlines with his words. Words that were rebuffed by Ismail Jamie SC who represented Galaxy Bingo saying “ We cannot ask this board to ignore its legal obligations. You don’t have the discretion to refuse to consider an application that is properly before you because gambling is bad.”