In South Africa, prediction market And various clones of games of chance adjacent to sports betting are called “interactive gaming” – because in this country, the bookmaker sets the odds, but the house still always wins. Unless you're a casino – the house still wins, but the stakes depend on the players' risk appetite.
In his 2016 thesis for a doctoral law degree, Towards the regulation of interactive gambling: an analysis of the gambling regulatory framework in South Africa, Segoun Monney accurately summarized the country's complex relationship with gambling: “With the exception of horse racing, gambling of any kind was decriminalized in South Africa until the beginning of constitutional democracy in 1994.
“The same year, the Lotteries and Gambling Board Act, 1993 came into force, which, among other things, decriminalized casino and gambling games within the Republic.
“This Act has since been repealed, and gambling is governed by National Gambling Act, 2004, “And also by provincial gambling laws.”
This is still in force, and National Gambling Board regulations state that “Online betting is defined as gambling games played through a licensed bookmaker in South Africa, where the bettor has no interaction with or influence over the outcome of the event on which they are placing a bet”.
Engaging in unlicensed offshore online gambling is a criminal offence, and winnings from such platforms can be confiscated by the state.
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Prediction markets are not clearly defined as a separate category in South African gambling law, but they operate on the same principles. fantasy betting Or playing pool.
Under the law, fantasy betting and similar predicted portfolios are not specifically prohibited. However, depending on their form, they may be justified as a contingency under the betting licence, or constitute a sports pool (on either side of the law) under section 57 of the Lotteries Act, 1997.
Basically, a prediction market will only be legally allowed if it is structured as a licensed sports betting or legally sanctioned sports pool – which they are.
“Sports betting is, in a way, very close to prediction markets. The weight of the money increases the odds and drives the movement,” Philip Bradford, chief investment officer at PortfolioMetrics, explained to Daily Maverick.
“The way you make money from it is not by betting on the favourite. It's really saying, OK, are there any bets? What are the odds? For an investor, it's also somewhat like that. It's more about taking advantage when things go wrong.”
Bradford's position is informed by its net-positive impact on investment market simplification and democratization of portfolio construction. From an efficiency perspective, forecast markets generally serve as additional signals to help understand a noisy environment.
AI has helped a lot in improving signal-to-noise ratios – “The game has become far more around efficiency analysis, but the biggest part of it is ignoring the real noise in the background and focusing on what matters” – and the knock-on effect is in better matching of investment assets. (As more investors have access to AI proficiency, you get more innovation and more diverse investment vehicles, giving more people more opportunities to get into investing.)
“The world has changed for us investors,” Bradford says of this new financial threshold. “It's kind of like fantasy football. You don't have to recruit the best players in the world – that's incredibly expensive. Nowadays, as an investor, you can actually pick the best players for your team very cheaply and very easily.”
He describes the portfolio mix of index funds and exposure to individual risks such as crypto or international companies (Tesla, Nvidia, etc.) through ETFs and derivatives trading vehicles as players available to all categories of investors.
After this a question arises about market education.
in fine verse
finmasterA financial literacy board game, developed by two South African industrial engineers, seems to be a good first step towards using gamification in a way that will help the average South African understand the previous paragraph.
Co-founders Eliza Dejan and Denai Rall met in their final year of university over a shared frustration: growing up in households where financial literacy was never discussed. They had to learn everything they knew about money.
“At 17 years old, I realized that other people didn't have as much experience with money as my own family did,” Rall said of his modest single-parent background.
“As a young girl, I promised myself that I would learn how to plan for my future and make sure I never had to look to anyone for money.”
Rall is the game's designer and chief operating officer, and together with her business partner, Dejan, a serial entrepreneur and chief executive of holding company Fintr, she has grand ambitions to empower a billion children across the continent.
“We wanted to build an app instead,” Djan recalls. “But everywhere we went, people would point to an early pizza box iteration we made as a board game and ask, 'Can I buy that?'
“That's when we decided to take the idea of sport more seriously and create a uniquely South African thing with the potential to challenge monopolies.”
Think of it as the PG13 version cards against HumanityBut with investment portfolios and financial concepts instead of dwarfs and convolutions. According to Djan, the game mechanic of traversing the board with tokens is an old idea of entertainment.
The company has released an annual update since the first concept in 2021 – two-pot retirement Was added in the 2026 edition – and offers updated game card packs to keep things up with the times.
Ultimately, simplification of finance and markets is happening in South Africa, whether the laws are ready or not. Mzansi has the largest number of licensed crypto service providers after the US, so the appetite to shake things up is there. As long as the education is done correctly, all should be well. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available nationwide for R35.