CC: Legalized gambling came into being in 1994, when South Africa gained its independence, although before that, gambling did exist, and it existed in what was dedicated as the homelands. But when South Africa became one nation, gambling was legalized. There are various policy objectives that were taken into consideration and adopted at a policy level to ensure that in the legalization and regulation of gambling, one would have to ensure it’s a safe and fair market, not only for the punters who gamble, but also for the licensees who actually want to partake in offering gambling, products and services. One of the policy objectives of gambling policy in South Africa is to ensure that there’s generation of revenue and promotion of economic development and growth. What is also targeted is employment creation, opportunities for small businesses to enter the industry and derive revenue. Another policy objective is consumer protection, preventing overstimulation of gambling. So although revenue generation is one of the policy objectives, it’s important in South Africa also to ensure that there’s a balance between revenue generation and the negative impact gambling has on an individual who decides to gamble. Then another way we ensure this through the regulatory framework to foster safe market conditions is we also oversee and ensure strict control and supervision over the industry. What is peculiar about South Africa the National Gambling Board, the national regulator, together with the Ministry of Industry, Trade, Industry and Competition, we set gambling policy and legislation. Then in every province, there is a provincial gambling board popularly known as a provincial licensing authority, and they do the licensing. In terms of the constitution, we all have to work together to ensure that there’s compliance, also uniformity with the National Act, and with the Provincial Act. It’s a very large and difficult task to maintain that balance and harmony but that’s one of the considerations. The other reason is that it was also a compromise at the end of the day to ensure that each province that has the license, can also collect tax, and it contributes to their tax revenue as a province. That’s why we have a quasi federal way of regulating gambling, although South Africa isn’t a federal state, but basically, for the purposes of gambling, that’s how gambling is regulated. The provinces are not be able to determine which mode of gambling gets legalized, or how many machines should be allowed: that is determined at the national level, and then they go ahead and implement that within their legislation. So we have a myriad of pieces of legislation that regulate gambling, and if one does an assessment, they’re more or less similar across the nine provincial jurisdictions. Another way in which we ensure profitability, and try and ensure there’s a balance in terms of market conditions is the National Gambling Board continuously monitors market share, and market conduct. We also have the power to report abuse of dominance to the Competition Commission an entity that reports to the Minister of Trade Industry. We’ve seen a pattern over the recent years where players in the casino industry buy other players in the bingo industry, or betting industry. So those requests for mergers, also go to the Competition Commission. And then we also have a role to actually advise the Competition Commission, and give our view in terms of whether it would be feasible or advisable for them to actually approve these kind of measures. But from a market share perspective, we have a number of oligopolies that sustain themselves and that’s the way the market is structured, to contribute also to safe market conditions. We also license each and every employee that works in the gambling industry. We do license entities and individuals cannot get a gambling license, but each employee who works in that entity has to be licensed. We also license games, we license software and hardware. We have stakeholders, for example, GLI who have an independent testing lab also. So that’s all part of the value chain to make sure that through the licensing process there is this level of integrity. Then the last thing would be Responsible Gambling. So even in that contributing to safe market conditions, there is an obligation on every licensee to contribute 0.01% of their gross gambling revenue to an NPO which is established to oversee Responsible Gambling, and they basically provide treatments to individuals who are struggling with compulsive and addictive gambling. MD: Jaime, you want to add something? JR-E We have similar considerations in Puerto Rico, about the balance and the destination of the revenue that any of
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