Spirited MP raises the stakes in fierce online gambling face-off
GEORDIN Hill-Lewis is the youngest MP to have been appointed to Parliament since 1994. Many people, including the senior leadership of the DA, see Hill-Lewis as a beacon of light and hope for the future of the country.
Considering all that this 28-year-old has accomplished on the path to becoming an MP, it’s easy to see why. Hill-Lewis is young, energetic, optimistic and forward-thinking – so forward-thinking, in fact, that he is hell-bent on legalising online gambling.
Hill-Lewis has been a member of the DA since high school. At the University of Cape Town, where he obtained an honours degree in politics and economics, he launched the first branch of the DA’s student organisation in the country. This was followed by volunteer work with the party, including on for mer leader Helen Zille’s successful 2009 campaign to become Western Cape Premier. Hill-Lewis was later appointed Zille’s chief of staff, and in 2014 was elected a DA MP.
The online world is far better understood by Millennials such as Hill-Lewis. However, the “old guard” doesn’t seem to understand why Parliament’s youngest MP wants to regulate internet wagering.
Hill-Lewis isn’t attempting to expand online gambling but is calling for regulation of an activity that already takes place widely. Currently, only sports betting and horse racing are permitted online.
In its 2012 presentation to the SA Gambling Review Commission, Betfair estimated the online gambling industry to be worth more than $450 million (R6.2bn) in South Africa.
Having first introduced legislation to legalise casino games, poker and games of equal chance in early 2014, Hill-Lewis has been trying ever since to have online gambling legalised, only to be met with strong resistance from the ANC and the Department of Trade and Industry.
Such strong opposition begs the question: Why is he hell-bent on legalising online gambling?
The more obvious reason is that it would generate badlyneeded tax revenue for a cashstrapped government. When Hill-Lewis became a member of the trade and industry portfolio committee, one of the first items on his agenda was to find ways to generate more tax revenue. In his eyes, this can be found in all forms of online gambling.
The amendments to the National Gambling Act may come into force upon favourable high court appeals, but considering how long this has already dragged out, nobody knows when.
This is a major component of Hill-Lewis’s argument, one which may explain his persistence in pushing the Remote Gambling Act, which he introduced in January 2014. His other argument is that it just makes sense to regulate online gambling.
In committee debates, HillLewis has repeatedly stressed the internet cannot be blocked and that thousands of South Africans already participate in online casino gaming.
But there are those who disagree about how this would benefit the economy, such as the Casino Association of SA (Casa), National Gambling Board (NGB) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
Just days after announcing his intention to push the bill forward for a second time in January last year, the DTI made its position clear in a press release: “There is no intention on the part of the government to propose the legislation of online gambling”.
Soon after, Casa chief executive Themba Ngobese blamed online gambling for a decline in the growth of casino revenue, claiming that just 5 percent of diverted casino revenue online would cost the government R110m in annual tax revenue. Casa soon after launched a public campaign to educate South Africans about the criminal consequences of illegal online gambling.
The Remote Gambling Bill was rejected again in June this year by both the parliamentary trade and industry committee and the National Assembly, with one MP saying the bill was a blatant attempt to “take food away from families” and would foster white-collar crime.
But Hill-Lewis doesn’t want to take food away from families. He simply wants the 2007 amendments to the National Gambling Act to be enforced, and for sound legislation to be passed that would protect South Africans from illicit offshore online gambling sites, while generating badly-needed tax revenue for a cash-strapped economy.
Whether he is counting on the National Gambling Act amendments to be enforced eventually, or hoping that the Remote Gambling Act will shine a light on current gambling irregularities in South Africa, one thing is certain – Hill-Lewis has everyone’s attention.
“The constitution allows the nine provincial governments some significant powers in the area of gambling licensing – it is not only a national function. My next approach will be to offer the bill to the various provinces, and see whether any of them are interested in forging ahead despite the position of the national government,” he stressed.
Devon Chappell is a Pennsylvania-based freelance journalist, who reports on gambling law and online gambling.