Dragonfish Sets Sites on South Africa

Since the possibility that the South African government would soon legalize online gambling, it has been widely speculated that a number of international service providers have been eyeing this potentially highly lucrative market. Now, despite delays in the implementation of the act passed more than a year ago, the well-known international casino developer, 888 has become the first to publicly nail its colours to the rainbow nation’s mast.

The company’s business-to-business Dragonfish division recently signed a deal that will see it partnering with the Republic’s Tsogo Sun Gaming Group to introduce a slew of online gambling activities. Among the first of these planned to debut in SA’s corner of cyberspace and to carry the Tsogo Sun banner, is the universally popular sports betting. This, in turn, will be closely followed by the 888 Internet casino games, online bingo and poker brands.

The deal comes just days after Dragonfish signed a juicy new deal with Harrah’s Entertainment to provide them with online gaming software and underlines the company’s long term goal of establishing partnerships that will enable it to operate under a variety of local licenses and benefit from their regulated operations. Their strategy is a simple one that involves toeing the lines drawn by local regulators by entering into deals with companies already licensed by those authorities.

In the meantime, the question on the tongues of most would-be South African’s online punters is why is the implementation of the new gambling act, introduced under it’s previous government, taking so long to take effect? It now appears that a certain amount of politicking  may be involved as government strives to deal with moral objections already satisfied at the time the act was introduced but that are now being re-raised by its opponents. CEO of the Casino Association of South Africa, Derek Auret has assured interested parties that the delays are due only to the need to ensure that public interest is addressed in drawing up the regulatory conditions.

The paperwork currently resides with the Department of Trade and Industry, who hold the final responsibility for compiling the regulations under which a legal South African online gaming industry will be bound to operate.

With that in mind, it seems reasonably certain that, once all of the nation’s online ducks are in a row, there will be several other internationals looking to piggy-back on SA casino licenses to help them in their quest for a slice of the pie.