Speaker 1: Let's focus our attention on this now. An undoubted feature
Speaker 1: of South African life that has really grown in prominence
Speaker 1: and in scale has been sports betting in South Africa.
Speaker 1: Many more people are betting, there are many more opportunities
Speaker 1: to bet. But my next guest has taken a look
Speaker 1: at some of the numbers and suggests that this is
Speaker 1: something we should be taking a long, hard look at,
Speaker 1: particularly in terms of the amount of money being spent,
Speaker 1: but also in terms of who's spending it. Professor Johann
Speaker 1: Foi is professor of economics at Stellenbosch University and he
Speaker 1: joins us now on seven two drive. Very good afternoon
Speaker 1: to a recent what should I call it blog that
Speaker 1: you've written but that has been widely shared. You're suggesting
Speaker 1: that there are things we should be concerned about. What,
Speaker 1: in particular, is that the quantum of betting, Is that
Speaker 1: the nature of betting, or you particularly worried about who's
Speaker 1: bettingtun listeners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think all those things are worrisome, but I
Speaker 2: think the most worrisome one for me is the scale
Speaker 2: at which it's happening at the moment. I think the
Speaker 2: growth over the last five years has been phenomenal. I
Speaker 2: call it ruinous, and it's basically, you know, we you know,
Speaker 2: to put a number to it, we've spent in the
Speaker 2: last year or so about a trillion round on sports petting.
Speaker 2: Now there is a footnote therein that you know, you
Speaker 2: can obviously reinvest or respend your winnings. But if you
Speaker 2: think of total disposable income in South Africa being like
Speaker 2: four point three trillion round, that's about a quarter of
Speaker 2: that we now spend on sports petting. And that's that's enormous.
Speaker 2: And you know, only five years ago it was about
Speaker 2: fifty billions, so it was its increased by about twenty times,
Speaker 2: and so that's I think the major concern is that
Speaker 2: it's growing. It's growing very rapidly, and I don't see
Speaker 2: that growth ending soon.
Speaker 1: So you could argue that about many forms of spending
Speaker 1: that are consumptive without new necessarily being particularly productive. There's
Speaker 1: similar debates, for example, around alcohol. I may not be
Speaker 1: picking the best possible example, but the option and the
Speaker 1: reason I'm thinking about it is the options often appear
Speaker 1: quite stock that either you have it or you don't,
Speaker 1: and if you don't have it legally, you'll have it underground.
Speaker 1: Particularly in a global world now where you don't have
Speaker 1: to go to a casino, you just need a phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think. I mean, you're right. Obviously, I don't
Speaker 2: think that we should outright ban this. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: an economist. I believe in freedom. I wrote a book
Speaker 2: that has freedom in the title, right, But I do
Speaker 2: think we should think about it as for the consequences
Speaker 2: for the economy and again just the scale of it.
Speaker 2: I think ultimately this spending is not very productive. And
Speaker 2: if we think about, you know, questions about why South
Speaker 2: Africa is not growing as an economy, then this you know,
Speaker 2: twentyfold increase in five years I think has a lot
Speaker 2: to do with it that we are spending our money
Speaker 2: that might have gone previously to other forms that you know,
Speaker 2: even if you go to a casino, at least you're
Speaker 2: consuming some things. You know, people are getting a job,
Speaker 2: But I don't think sports betting generates a lot of jobs.
Speaker 2: I don't think the money necessarily even stayed in South Africa,
Speaker 2: and so I think it's really kind of hurting. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's also got social implications, but it's also hurting in
Speaker 2: our economy, and I think that's not something that we've
Speaker 2: really looked at. Certainly there's not a lot of research
Speaker 2: on it, and so that would be my first part,
Speaker 2: of course, is to say that we need to actually
Speaker 2: study this much more closely and see what the consequences are.
Speaker 1: So let's get your thoughts then, prof I mean, scale
Speaker 1: is what we have right now, and your numbers suggest
Speaker 1: that it's substantial. You have concerns and you call it ruinous.
Speaker 1: Can it be scaled back? I mean, could you have
Speaker 1: this kind of sports betting that doesn't require you to
Speaker 1: go anywhere? And your point about casinos is that that means,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a barman, and there's somebody who's looking
Speaker 1: after the cars, et cetera, a casino manage and beyond.
Speaker 1: But if we were to scale it back, do you
Speaker 1: have any ideas about how that could be done.
Speaker 2: I think these are really good questions, and I mean
Speaker 2: there are standard answers. Of course, you know, we can
Speaker 2: outright band it, but as you said or alluded to,
Speaker 2: this will simply go underground or a broad on. The
Speaker 2: most obvious one, I guess is taxation. And you know
Speaker 2: these other typical syntaxes. We we we tax alcohol, we
Speaker 2: tax sugar, plastic, these kind of things, and so this
Speaker 2: would be the most obvious form. Obviously, trying to find
Speaker 2: the right tax level is quite difficulty. But I think
Speaker 2: there's also more creative options that we really haven't explored,
Speaker 2: like you know, regulatory options. Basically we've made it so easy.
Speaker 2: Technology is obviously not to blame, but the kind of
Speaker 2: part of the story here and that you know, you
Speaker 2: used to have to go to a casino, It was
Speaker 2: an effort to get there. There was some social cost
Speaker 2: to that. Now it's anonymous. You know, I can sit
Speaker 2: in front of my computer at work and gamble or
Speaker 2: bet at least, and and that is that is a
Speaker 2: huge problem. So we should make it more difficult to
Speaker 2: do that. And and I'll add to that in that
Speaker 2: there's also you know, it's a fancy it's sexy to
Speaker 2: do so, you know, there's all these role models, these
Speaker 2: sports finalities that promoted. So there's also a cultural aspect
Speaker 2: to it that I think we should think carefully about.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, Professor Johann Furi, Professor of economics at
Speaker 1: Stellenbosch University. It's an important debate. We're going to pick
Speaker 1: it up on Monday. We're busy lining up a guess
Speaker 1: from the sports bedding industry to give their response to
Speaker 1: what Prof. Fourri had to say. Twenty five minutes past
Speaker 1: four