The issuing of new bookmaker licences symbolises how South Africa’s most vulnerable economic participants are being sold off to the highest bidders.
The exponential growth of the gambling industry has come at the cost of defaults on car and home loan repayments and shrunken grocery baskets.
Many South Africans are clearly betting not for leisure but out of desperation to make ends meet, and the government is well aware of this.
Instead of ramping up socioeconomic relief interventions and addressing the factors that contribute to our ailing economy, the powers that be continue to remove the remaining barriers preventing betting companies from exploiting vulnerable low-income earners.
To add salt to the wound, many of the most popular betting companies are based abroad, meaning the profits they make at the expense of vulnerable South Africans do not benefit the local economy in any way.
One thing will always remain true: the house always wins.
Tisetso Tsukudu
Johannesburg
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