'BINGO' TERMINALS BOOMING IN SOUTH AFRICA

23 February 2007

New gaming terminals mimic games of chance typically found in casinos, using bingo as a guise

South African newspapers are reporting that new casino-type gaming terminals in Gauteng province bingo halls are mushrooming in an unregulated way, posing a threat to the limited payment machine industry, Parliament was told this week.

Unlike the limited payment machine industry, these casino-style terminals had no limits on stakes or winnings and jackpots were permitted, Limited Payout Machine Association SA chairman Elias Mphande told the national council of provinces' select committee on economic and foreign affairs.

He said the new bingo gaming terminals mimicked the games of chance typically found in casinos, and used bingo as a guise. They were unregulated by any law and fell outside government's policy framework for the gambling industry.

The South African government is currently pondering the advisability of regulating online gambling following an extensive research initiative on the international industry.

Mphande's association called for a moratorium on the issuing of bingo licences until the law had been changed to regulate them. Currently the law limits the number of casinos that can be established in the country and restricts the number of limited payment machines outside casinos to 50 000 nationally.

This left bingo as the only unregulated alternative.

Mphande said the approval process and standards for bingo gaming terminals were not the same as those applied to casinos and the limited payment machine industry.

"The wholesale introduction of these new gaming terminals into bingo halls to replace traditional bingo "seats" has the potential to create mini-casinos through the replacement of some 3 734 seats in eight bingo halls in Gauteng alone," Mphande said.

"Government's carefully crafted gambling policy and laws are being circumvented by this."

Mphande said government needed to formulate a national policy and clarify the difference between gambling devices intended to aid bingo and those that were electronic facsimiles of casino-style gambling machines.

There were about 2 755 limited payment machines operating in SA, with 9 000 licensed to do so. The association said that the capital invested in the industry over the past eight years amounted to Rands 405 million and that it had contributed Rands 132 million to the economy through licence fees, provincial gambling tax, VAT and monitoring fees over this period.

Meanwhile, the national assembly's trade and industry committee was briefed on the National Gambling Amendment Bill, which proposes to introduce interactive, online gambling.

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