The gambling industry: South Africa Vs Ghana

What you need to know about Ghana and South Africa's gambling industries:

Both Ghana and South Africa share the distinction of being arguably the most liberal in Africa when it comes to gambling legislations. For both countries gambling revenues are also an important source of tax revenue.  

Ghana 

Ghana is a country along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa and it has a robust domestic gambling industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Gambling is fully legal and regulated by the Ghana Gaming Commission (GGC). The commission is the sole regulatory entity for the gambling industry in Ghana, excluding the lottery, which is run by the National Lottery Authority (NLA). The government of Ghana does not permit any lottery draws except national lottery games authorised.
 
Starting with the Lotteries Betting Act of 1960, Ghana's government decided that casino gaming could be a stimulus for economic growth and tax revenues. Later in 1973 the Gambling Machine Act was passed and gave Ghana the reputation as a place for casino operators and platforms to do business. There are now six government-backed casino resorts in the capital city, Accra, with the largest and most luxurious being the Victoria Casino, which is hugely popular among tourists. An estimated 45% of the locals participate in real-money gaming on a regular basis. 
 

South Africa 

With almost USD 2 billion in revenues in 2019 South Africa's gambling industry is the largest in Africa by far and several times bigger than that of Ghana. 96% of the locals love playing the lottery on a regular basis and more than 25% play slots and card games regularly. Still much of the revenue from South Africa's gaming industry is derived from tourism, owing to a large number of luxury casino resorts in the country like the 5-star Sun City Resort, which attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. 
 
Furthermore, South Africa's region is the most developed for high-tech online gaming solutions. Anyone interested in playing online poker in South Africa would quickly find a massive range of platforms that operate legally in the country, providing all variants of poker to South African players.  
South Africa is clearly the biggest gaming destination for tourists on the whole continent and the countries industry remains larger and more diversified in virtually every respect compared to Ghana. 

About SiGMA LatAm Focus:

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