South Africa’s draft Remote Gambling Bill of 2014 Published

South Africa’s draft remote gambling bill of 2014 was published in the Government Gazette on the 23^rd of April 2014 by Geordin Hill-Lewis, the DA Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry. News of the newly drafted bill was announced in early 2014 by Hill-Lewis in an email interview and he said, “It’s still a long road before online gambling is legalized in South Africa.” The bill was tabled and published in parliament and a deadline has been set for the bill to be open for public comment until Friday, 23 May 2014. Before the parliament can make its final decision to vote on it, the bill will be debated in the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry According to Hill-Lewis, he estimated that the process will take up to 9 months to run its course due to the fact that there are several factors that influence the time it takes to process the bill and this may even take more time as estimated. Hill-Lewis also said, “the Portfolio committee and Parliament will take the final steps to finalize whether the bill is passed into law or not. Hence, at this stage it is not yet certain that the bill will definitely become law.” The newly drafted bill states the following laws:

• To provide for the regulation of remote gambling in South Africa;
• To provide for standards and uniform norms in respect of remote gambling to be applicable throughout the country;
• To prevent vulnerable persons and minors from being exposed to the negative effects of gambling; to ensure compliance with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act;
• To protect the licensed remote gambling operators and the public from criminal behavior and fraud, financing or money laundering of terrorist and related activities; and
• To provide for matters connected therewith.

Only time will tell how the bill will progress.