South Africa Sets Gambling Regulations

South Africa has been trying to get online casino regulations and taxation under control for a very long time. There was a recent press release that revealed that there were some big steps toward regulation in South Africa. The Minister of Finance in South Africa, Trevor Manuel, released the afore mentioned statement which had implications of a bill that will tax online casinos and online gambling. The bill was approved in May of 2008 but instead of labeled online casino gambling it was under the name of “interactive gambling”. The National Gambling Amendment Bill only regulated but did not tax online gabling as proposed under this new bill.

The new bill is going to impose the taxes on all online casinos operating out of South Africa. They will have to pay taxes on the gross revenue that they bring in, not the net revenue. The past legislature in South Africa did not make online casino play legal, but it was supposed to ensure a form of regulation for the interactive gambling sectors. The National Gambling Amendment Bill will be put into place to aide the player and avoid off shore jurisdictions. The South African government intends on making their rules and regulations very strict. They intend on enforcing all of their policies in order to fully protect their citizens and anyone interested in participating in interactive gambling whether it be at an online casino or not.

Online casino regulation is often a heavily debated topic and the South African public will be able to weigh in on this issue before it goes to Parliament in early 2009. Taxing of the online casinos and other interactive gambling websites will be placed under a special tax bracket for now, due to how new it is. If you are interested in reading more about this issue and how you can write in to the Treasury to get your opinion heard about the issues in South Africa you can visit the Treasury’s website and get all of the information that you need.