Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
154. How Online Betting Drains Wallets And Communities
The scoreboard says “fun,” but the numbers tell a different story. We dig into the surge of online gambling in South Africa—how seamless phone betting, constant sports ads, and a culture of “one more chance” are reshaping family budgets, draining community spend, and pushing people into risky debt. Drawing on recent retail data, industry quotes, and firsthand stories, we unpack why the house always wins and what that means for anyone trying to build savings, pay school fees, or simply keep the fridge full.
We talk through the mechanics that make mobile betting so dangerous: anonymity that hides the problem, rapid-fire micro-bets that blur cost, and platforms designed to keep you engaged. Then we zoom out to the wider economy, where money that once circulated through local shops now flows to platforms—many with profits that don’t cycle back into South African communities. The jump from R10bn to R150bn in online betting over five years isn’t a headline; it’s a warning light for households and the country.
This conversation gets practical fast. We share step-by-step ways to add friction—deleting apps, blocking merchants, using bank tools for alerts, and automating essentials on payday so temptation meets an empty runway. We offer a path for recovery that respects the realities of addiction: tell one trusted person, seek professional support, and rebuild a spending order that protects food, housing, and transport before anything else. We also challenge platforms and regulators to introduce guardrails that reduce harm without waiting for crises to stack up.
If you’re wrestling with betting—or worried about someone you love—there’s a way forward that puts structure, support, and sanity back into your money. Listen, share with a friend who needs it, and subscribe for more straight-talking guidance. If this helped, leave a review and tell us what tools you want us to explore next.
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Hello everybody, welcome to Know Your Money. I'm Bronwyn Wayner.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm Craig Finch, and we are from Growth Financial Planning. We hope you enjoy our podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, everybody. Today Craig and I would like to discuss something that we feel is a little bit concerning for South Africa as a whole and especially our clients. We have noticed that there's such an uptick in gambling, and we think that it is actually a little bit of a problem. Do you feel that way, Craig? What are your thoughts?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I do. I mean, there's this started to when I started seeing this in Australia when my mom was living there about 10 years ago on the sports channels. All the interruptions were referring to gambling, and mostly online gambling. So online gambling is you can gamble on your phone. Nobody really knows you are gambling. So in a casino environment, you have to walk into a casino. You might be embarrassed because you see somebody you know there. And that's a little bit more difficult, even though if you might have a gambling problem, you would probably still go there. But this is a lot worse because anybody can gamble on their cell phone.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it's incredible how you watch all the adverts now in the sporting arenas. When I watch sports, everything is referring back to the gambling sites. And I don't think this money stays in South Africa either. It's not it's not going around in South Africa. And that's a big problem. So it's leaving our country, so it's not helping our economy, and then our clients and our not our clients, everybody who gambles can be destitute. And that's a huge problem. I actually picked up an article in Moneyweb. I need to put my glasses on, I'll just read it to you. The CEO of a company, um, and it's a retailer, and the retailer is TFG. Now TFG owned Fashiony, Markham, Sportsine, Total Sports, American Swiss, Jet and Corycraft. And he was just saying how they want the government to regulate this and and almost ban some of the online gambling, what people are doing. So the problem with this is that also the he says that Stats SA says online betting market has grown from 10 billion to 150 billion in the last five years, which is so bad. And pick and pay and checkers and and other companies that do the fast food companies have noticed a decline in their sales, and they say it's attributable to people instead of uh buying food, clothing, looking after their family, and they're gambling, and that's a that's a massive problem. And I I I know of um yeah, two instances in my yeah, I know somebody who gambled at a casino years ago. Uh, this woman had a gambling problem, had to ban herself eventually, but she got paid on the one Friday, was her salary was paid. And she's a single mother with one daughter, and she put her whole salary that night into the casino. So the next day she had no food in the table, and so that's how people can get addicted to gambling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And another guy I know, um, he had to leave the company he was working for, he was there for over 20 years, but he owed gambling debts, then he had to take his pension money of 20 years, liquidate that, and pay these gambling debts. Because they were also unscrupulous lenders as well, that you see in the movies. So that's one aspect, but the I think the aspect that is concerning is this online gambling that anybody can do it on your phone, and we just want to warn people that gambling is really, really bad. That there's no out there's no good outcome. I mean, we heard the CEO of Sun International talk a couple of years ago, and he said 80% of their revenue came out of gambling, not out of food and beverage and hotels. Sure. And 80% of that were the stock machines. And this was before online gambling became as problematic as it is. So, and that stat shows it 10 to 150 billion is is is crazy numbers.
SPEAKER_01:I think you're right, and I think overall it is an addiction, and those are one of the many addictions that often people do face and struggle with, and it really isn't easy, and I I think the main crux of why we're bringing it up today is because that affects your money, which ultimately affects your life, and we just want to try. If there is anyone struggling, help them to realise that. Um, my family was actually my grand, my aunts, and my mum were all like serious gamblers. Sometimes when my dad would drop me off for the weekend, she'd say, No, I don't want Bronwyn here this weekend because I'm going out and gambling. And sometimes my cousins would have to sleep on the side of the gambling thing because they were all inside gambling. So it is a reality and it is something that a lot of people can face. Not just, you know, everyone thinks, oh, well, it's not going to happen to me. And I think what you're highlighting is also so important is that was back then where people could see, okay, you're not showing up for your kids, you're doing this because you have to leave and go somewhere and gamble. Now that it's on your phone, it's it can literally destroy lives.
SPEAKER_02:Completely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And you you'll be a slave to that because there's no way that the house loses.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So the house always wins. There's no, you know, you'll get people, oh, I won this money, but they don't tell you all the other times they've lost, and they really the house will never lose money. And you can look at what these like Sun Cities, a magnificent piece of real estate, beautiful hotel, built on the back of gambling. If they were losing money, they wouldn't have been able to build that magnificent resort. And it's people's money, it's yeah, and you become a slave to it. So we're just saying to everybody, be aware of it. If you if you get tempted to put a gambling app on your phone, don't. If it's not on your phone, you can't do it, then it's less of a temptation taken away. And if you have a problem, there are many, many organizations. I Googled it earlier, there's about four or five help sites where you can help you if you've got this problem. And I just please, if you are in that situation, go and get help now. Don't let it get out of hand.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And also we are here to help if 100%. If there is anything, because I think on the back of that, if you do find yourself getting over this addiction, you are gonna need some help in planning on on what your future looks like.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, great.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, Ron.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Craig.
SPEAKER_02:Have a good day. Cheers. Bye everybody. Thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this podcast, would like to subscribe, please visit our website www.growthfp.co.za the information we have provided in this podcast is our personal opinion. For more detailed information, please discuss your financial situation with a financial planner.