South Africa Ignores Rise of Violent Crime to Focus on Online Gamblers

South Africa's government has expressed its dissatisfaction to the country's financial institutions for not doing enough to ‘win the war against internet gambling'. The Reserve Bank of South Africa through its Department of Financial Surveilance reminded banks of their duty to focus more resources on identifying customers who are suspected of gambling online or playing foreign lotteries.

South Africa is world famous for diamond mines as wells as having one of highest rates of murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery, hijacking, assault and child molestation in the world. For the past three years, The United Nations has named South Africa as ‘The Rape Capital of the World', with 25% of males admitting to committing rape, child rape, or baby rape, and 12% admitting to being involved in a gang rape.

A recent forum post from a frustrated South African citizen states thst "South Africa's government and law enforcement agencies have focused the country's resources on locating online casino players, who quietly sit at home playing slots, than on arresting the murderous rape gangs that roam all cities and villages."

Over the past month, each financial institution was mailed a stern reminder of South African gambling laws, warning that online gambling is illegal under the Lotteries Act 57 of 1997, National Gambling Act 7 of 2004 and the National Gambling Amendment Act 10 of 2008. A Citibank teller commented – "...how many rapes and robberies took place as the postman was delivering this government warning."

In 2009, the Parliamentary Trade and Industry Commission created the Gambling Review Commission to analyze the pros and cons of regulating online casino in South Africa and to report its findings. The report, which made recommendations to modify existing gambling laws in South Africa, was submitted to Parliament eighteen months ago, yet no further action was taken. All forms of online gambling are forbiddes in South Africa, and there are no forseeble plans to change the gambling laws in the near future.