Online casinos demand rises in South Africa during Covid-19

exciting games that are offered in the world of online casino

The Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown measures have had a massive effect on the way South Africans go about their daily lives. The fact that people have had to spend more time at home and change most of their habits has resulted in some pretty interesting developments.

For instance, instead of going to the shops, lots of people started purchasing things online. Similarly, rather than paying bills in person, people are now paying them via e-banking.And those South Africans thinking of going to the cinema have had to turn to entertainment streaming services such as Netflix.

It is obvious that the threat of the pandemic, as well as the accompanying lockdown and social distancing measuresmade South Africans turn to e-commerce and online entertainment services. This has been particularly true for people who were used to visiting their local brick-and-mortar casinos.

Finding reliable casino sites online

When talking about who was hit the hardest by the COVID-19 lockdown measures you simply cannot leave out South African gamblers. Gambling in South Africa is completely legal, but only if you do it in land-based casinos.

Unfortunately, lockdown measures have closed most of these. Even when casinos have started working once again, they’ve had to follow some pretty strict social distancing measures. As a result, they’ve lost much of their appeal and consequently their customers.

In the COVID-19 aftermath, most South African punters are playing at online casinos. However, this is new territory for some of them.Therefore, they need expert guidance to navigate the treacherous waters of the online gambling industry.

Fortunately, there are places where South African players can find all the most relevant information regarding reliable and licensed online casinos. The list of online casinos in South Africa at bestcasinosites.net is one good example of this.

Websites such as these help lots of new online gamblers all the time. They provide invaluable information on which online casinos are legal and which are not. That is very helpful if you are new to the industry and you don’t want to get scammed by fraudulent establishments.

The state of online casino gambling in South Africa

According to the 2004 National Gambling act, online gambling at casino sites is illegal in South Africa. This means that the only way that you can play at online casinos in the country right now is to visit offshore casino sites, but that is far from ideal.

First of all, offshore casino sites are illegal in South Africa. Secondly, even if you are willing to go around that, it goes without saying that you would expose yourself to other issues.

For instance, let’s sayyour casino depositdisappearsfor no reason. If this happens at a regulated site, you will get your deposit back. However, if you are gambling at an offshore casino, there is no guarantee that you will rectify the issue. You might get your money back, but then again, you might not.

This is because there is no South African regulatory body vouching for the safety of your funds when gambling at offshore sites. That’s why, whenever people wager there, they do that at their own risk.

Increased pressure to legalize online casinos

Needless to say, South Africans are not happy with this situation. They want to be able to gamble legally at South African online casinos and are finding it hard to understand why they can’t.

After all, online betting on sports and horse races is completely legal at South African online bookmakers. To say that there is a huge difference between betting on sports and playing at an online casino is quite hypocritical.

There’s a reason why most countries that have legalized online sports betting have done the same with their online casino industry too.

They know that an unregulated online casino market causes more problems than it solves. It leaves the door open for criminal activity and increases the size of the country’s shadow economy among other things. Worst of all, gambling enthusiasts are hung out to dry by their lawmakers and that’s not a good look for any country.

This has led South African gamblers to start putting more pressure on the government to legalize online casinos in their country. Various initiatives are trying to get online casinos legalized and individual players are pushing lawmakers too.

They say that since the legal gambling industry in South Africa makes over $2 million a year, you can expect to see at least as much as that if you legalize online gambling too.

This will mean that online casino money that is now unregulated will become perfectly clean. As a result, the South African government will get another source of taxable revenue.

Legalizing online casinos is a win-win situation for both the players and the SA government. That’s why some insiders are claiming now that SA authorities will legalize online gambling pretty soon.

The COVID-19 effect

It is to be expected that now that so many people have started gambling online they will continue wagering that way. This claim is made stronger by the fact that land-based casinos will probably have to operate at limited capacity in the next couple of years too.

This is because many COVID-19 related questions are still unanswered. For instance,we don’t know when vaccines will be available to everyone and for how long a single shot will immunize an individual.

Similarly, scientists and doctors are still trying to find a course of treatment that is 100 percent effective in treating the disease too. This is more of a trial and error process, will likely take quite some time, and even when people will be sure that the solution is there, that won’t be the case.

For instance, much has been written about the effectiveness of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Even influential people such as the US president backed the treatment and said that it was successful. However, based on current evidence, most experts are against using malarial drugs  to treat COVID-19. They claim that there are no benefits to using the drugs and they can do more harm than good.

Online casinos will continue to grow in popularity

This means that the virus will be around for some time and gamblers and casinos will have to get used to that. Even when they are not going to be closed, land-based casinos will only operate at limited capacity. Casino patrons will have to maintain a safe distance, casino tables will have only a couple of players on them, and the number of slot machines available will have to be reduced.

A casino experience such as this one is far from ideal and kills much of the joy of playing on a full and vibrant gaming floor. Lots of gamblers will be aware of this and will think twice before visiting a brick-and-mortar casino. For them, online gambling will continue to be the only alternative going into the future.

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