Is Online Roulette Banned in South Africa? The 2025 Court Ruling Explained

If you’ve seen headlines claiming South Africa banned online casino gambling, the actual story is narrower and more specific than that. In October 2025, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on a single, specific question: can a bookmaker licensed under Gauteng’s gambling law take fixed-odds bets on roulette? The court said no. What the ruling does and doesn’t mean beyond that has been argued about ever since, including by the regulator and the industry body representing bookmakers, who publicly disagree with each other about it.

This guide walks through what the court actually decided, how the case got there, and why the National Gambling Board and the South African Bookmakers’ Association still don’t agree on how far it reaches.

What the Supreme Court of Appeal Actually Ruled

On 21 October 2025, the SCA handed down judgment in Portapa (Pty) Limited t/a Supabets and Others v Casino Association of South Africa and Another, heard together with a related appeal by the Gauteng Gambling Board (case numbers 182/2024 and 215/2024, cited as [2025] ZASCA 158). The bench, Dambuza JA, with Mothle JA and Koen JA concurring, ruled on one specific legal question: does the word “sporting event” in section 55 of the Gauteng Gambling Act 4 of 1995 stretch far enough to cover roulette?

The court said it doesn’t. Roulette is expressly defined as a casino game under the same Act, and the judges found no conflict between that provincial restriction and the National Gambling Act, which more broadly lets bookmakers bet on “any contingency.” Gauteng’s narrower rule, the court held, is a legitimate policy choice within the province’s own legislative power. The practical result: a bookmaker licensed under Chapter 9 of the Gauteng Gambling Act cannot take fixed-odds bets on roulette without separately holding a casino licence. The appeals were dismissed with costs, and the earlier High Court ruling in the Casino Association’s favour was upheld.

The Backstory: How a Livestreamed Roulette Wheel Ended Up in Court

This dispute has been running since 2017. On 11 April that year, the Gauteng Gambling Board approved a request from Intelligent Gaming to offer livestreamed roulette draws, using software called Aardvark, to bookmakers already licensed in the province. On 14 June 2017, Supabets (Portapa (Pty) Ltd) applied to the Board to install the Aardvark software at its Gauteng betting shops. The Board granted conditional approval on 20 June 2017, but despite not having secured consent for all contingencies and bet types, Supabets began taking fixed-odds bets on live roulette streamed from a casino in Lithuania on 23 June 2017. A related entity, Supaworld Gauteng (Pty) Ltd, applied for the same approval in November 2017, by which time it was already offering the bets.

The Casino Association of South Africa complained to the Board, arguing this was a casino product being sold without a casino licence. The Board took close to ten months to respond, and in March 2018 decided Supabets hadn’t done anything unlawful, just introduced a new betting product without asking the Board’s permission first. CASA wasn’t satisfied and took the matter to the Gauteng High Court, which ruled in its favour. Supabets and the Board then appealed to the SCA, and lost.

Why the Industry Still Disagrees About What This Means

Here’s where the story splits. The National Gambling Board welcomed the ruling and, in a media release and in its 2024/25 Annual Report, described it as applying to bookmakers nationwide, calling on every provincial licensing authority to enforce compliance. That’s a much bigger claim than what the court actually said, since the case was specifically about how one word is defined in one province’s legislation.

The South African Bookmakers’ Association pushed back directly. In a formal statement, SABA said the judgment “neither rules nor implies” that bookmakers throughout South Africa are barred from offering roulette or other casino games. Multiple law firms writing about the case since October 2025 have taken the same position: this was a narrow, fact-specific ruling about the Gauteng Gambling Act’s own wording, not a blanket national verdict on whether bookmakers anywhere can offer casino-style games.

No further appeal, to the Constitutional Court or otherwise, has been reported as of this writing. But the underlying disagreement between the regulator and the industry body hasn’t been resolved either.

What’s Settled and What’s Still Disputed

What This Means If You Play Casino Games Through a Sportsbook

Several South African sportsbooks let you play roulette, slots and live-dealer games through the same account and licence as your sports betting, rather than through a separately licensed online casino. That’s the exact setup this case is about. If your operator is licensed in Gauteng specifically, the SCA’s ruling applies to it directly. If it’s licensed elsewhere, the honest answer right now is that nobody outside a courtroom can tell you with full confidence whether the same restriction applies, and the regulator and the bookmakers’ own industry body are on opposite sides of that question.

This isn’t a reason to panic about money already deposited or won. It’s a reason to know that the legal ground under casino-style products offered via a bookmaker licence, in any province, is currently less settled than it was a year ago, and worth watching rather than assuming is fully resolved either way.

How to Check Where Your Operator Stands

• Check your operator’s licence details in their site footer, and note which province issued it.
• If it’s a Gauteng bookmaker licence, the SCA ruling applies directly to any roulette or casino-style products offered under that licence.
• If it’s licensed elsewhere (Western Cape, Mpumalanga, or another province), treat the legal position as currently disputed rather than settled in either direction.
• Watch for direct statements from your operator or its regulator rather than relying on general news coverage, since several outlets initially reported this as a blanket national ban, which multiple law firms have since corrected.
• Remember a bookmaker licence and a casino licence are legally distinct in South Africa. A site can be completely legitimate for sports betting while a specific casino-style product it offers is the part in question.

For background on how South African gambling licensing works more broadly, see our guide to South African gambling laws, our best sports betting sites in South Africa comparison, and our reviewed online casinos hub, including our Supabets sportsbook review and Supabets casino review, the operator directly named in this case.