Online gambling

Hi,can someone explain why online poker is illegal ,or rather gambling online besides sports betting...but you can bet on numbers on Hollywood?

....the local Casino's carry a lot of clout with the Gambling Boards....they too are taking strain and cannot afford for the shrinking amount of players to stay away and give it away to online ...not even they were given gaming licences to hold online betting sites....dont know if Hollywood has numbers online but there are many others that do numbers of various overseas lotto draws.....offing numbers on local Lotto is also illegal yet there are still many of these open bet merchants chancing their licences and still offering odds on the local lotto numbers....:dry:

Not running Hollywood down...Just something I was wondering about....I don't know if it's actually legal for a person to place a bet on numbers? From what I've looked into ,sports/horse betting is legal because it requires a skill set....So does poker really...but betting on numbers?can't be much skill to that surely

Still learning how to go around this site...end of the day I think your right...It's about the casino's....which is kinda wrong....Not knocking Hollywood...Just don't see how numbers are legal to bet on as there's no skill in it....that I know of at least

strike it wrote: Not running Hollywood down...Just something I was wondering about....I don't know if it's actually legal for a person to place a bet on numbers? From what I've looked into ,sports/horse betting is legal because it requires a skill set....So does poker really...but betting on numbers?can't be much skill to that surely

.....there was a loophole as far as numbers betting goes so all and sundry are doing it as it is legal....even Betting World are very big on numbers....
so nothing wrong with even Hollywood or any other doing the very same....

I guess they dont like punters playing games where an element of skill is involved.

In previous era I believe that "skill" was an argument that gambling wasn't gambling. But now with lotteries and casinos you don't need to argue to convince anyone to let you gamble. There is no skill requirement, just a tax requirement.

With regards online gaming (gaming, not gambling), the main idea is to protect local gamblers against offshore sites to which SA's have no recourse and to which there is no way to check if they are cheating. I assume it was easier to ban the whole lot. And also you can't collect the tax.

The numbers are allowed because they are betting on the OUTCOME of the numbers drawn and not actually betting into the pools of these various lottos

PeeKay wrote: The numbers are allowed because they are betting on the OUTCOME of the numbers drawn and not actually betting into the pools of these various lottos

Yeah but casinos/ bingo etc is not because their is no skill?

Poker is a skill based game... Not allowed

In fact I’m sure the “ fish” % ( losers )in poker is 93%

Compared with 96% “mugs” in racing

The Gambling Act of SA only has one thing to say about "skill", and that is to say:

"An activity is a gambling game if..."

"the result might be determined by the skill of the player, the element of chance, or both;"

That all of it, nothing more.

The thing is, local bookies more than likely have their gaming servers based in South Africa. most of the casino games on for eg: Bet365 are what is termed Quickfire where the servers are hosted in places like the Isle of man or Malta. so the Casino/Bookie own the player and the players wallet but rake etc go to the operator and unlike where landbased casino's can be monitored for earnings and tax, there is no way they can get their piece of the pie when a server is off shore or in the cloud.