Wayne Lurie: Legislative reform in South Africa is absolutely necessary at this juncture

How has Lurie Inc. evolved over the past two decades?

Our entry into the market as gambling law specialist lawyers was on the back of a very large international online casino client at the time. In the early 2000’s, the laws around online gambling were globally underdeveloped and there was a more “universal” or global approach to things including licensing, which although in different jurisdictions was fairly generic. Our firm then picked up clients and developed expertise in the terrestrial gaming environment locally and regionally including regulators on the African continent looking for guidance in the then nascent  online market.

As the global gambling market developed, regional legal specialists in the online gaming space began to emerge and our sphere of practice began to focus more concertedly on local and regional work with the occasional broader international project. We feel it safe to say that we have had the privilege of consulting to the majority of participants in the local online gambling market from software studios to the largest of international publicly listed operators. We also enjoy maintaining good relationships with all of the local regulators, as well as those further afield on the broader continent.

What motivated you to specialize in gambling and betting law?

From the start of my career in the late 90’s I developed a deep interest in, and love for, technology related law. Early on in my career I established, with the encouragement of my mentors at the time, a technology law department at one of the oldest large law firms in the country. It was through this practice that I gathered the interest of what was then one of the largest online casino operators in the world and went to work with them for a short time before founding Lurie Inc Attorneys which continued to serve that client and the many others that have come after in this exciting industry.

How has the gambling industry in South Africa changed since you started your career, particularly with the advent of online gaming?  

Well the growth of online gambling has been somewhat inversely proportional to the contraction of the terrestrial industry. It is evident that the majority of gamblers have embraced the technological convenience afforded by online betting as opposed to travelling to gambling establishments like land-based casinos. The attraction and convenience of gamified fixed-odds betting opportunities and markets graphically depicted in casino style games has driven a huge upsurge of interest in online offerings and the tax base has grown enormously. Taxes paid by bookmakers, offering these games, will relatively soon outstrip those paid to government by the terrestrial industry in my opinion.

What are the most significant regulatory changes you have seen in the gambling sector in South Africa and internationally?  

Since it is virtually impossible for law to keep up with technological innovation due to the cumbersome lawmaking processes in most democracies, I would think that the changes from a regulatory perspective globally would appear to be around adopting a more durable and pragmatic technology neutral approach to lawmaking with the appropriate frameworks in place to allow adaptations by the regulators themselves.

This balance is the most challenging aspect of gambling regulation. One would not ideally want a situation where the regulators have complete unfettered powers to ‘make it up as the go along’ nor one where the regulators are frustrated by draconian and outdated laws in facing technological innovations. Some regimes would appear to be getting this right internationally.

In South Africa, we are challenged in that our laws provincially (at a ‘state’ level) and nationally are very outdated and are essentially almost all nearly thirty years old, going back to 1996. This places enormous burden on our regulators as they struggle to keep up with the burgeoning demand for gambling products in the context of laws that were made before the internet was even commercially deployed in South Africa. We have seen some regulators in South Africa coping better than others at a provincial level but we believe that legislative reform is absolutely essential at this juncture.

Just before our last national election a couple of months ago, in May 2024, a private member’s bill was tabled in Parliament to reform online gambling legislation. In our opinion, the passing of this law and the development of secondary legislation (regulations around this) cannot come quickly enough.

What trends do you foresee shaping the future of the gambling industry, particularly in South Africa?  

As we’ve already mentioned, the new product and content that is flooding into the market in terms of game types and choice underpinned by fixed-odds betting logic (the only legal algorithms currently allowed to underpin online gambling product in South Africa) is definitely defining and shaping the next few years in our gambling market. This together with the reform in legislation that we hope will occur soon to assist both regulators and the operators (and their games suppliers) will guarantee a responsible and profitable further growth in our gambling market.

As the author of the Chambers Global Practice Guide to Gaming in South Africa, what key insights can you share about the current state of gaming law across the African continent?   

It is fair to say that the issues mentioned earlier surrounding regulation requiring significant update and lagging far behind technological innovation and growth are common across the African continent. I’m aware of jurisdictions in Africa that have legislation surrounding gambling that dates back to the 1950’s almost 70 years ago and well before the advent of personal computers, cellphones and the internet. Hopefully legislatures and governments across the continent will be encouraged by the massive growth in interest and variety of gambling product to invest in substantial reform to their laws.