---
title: "Bets on bets: The companies bidding to make your life a gamble"
description: "South Africa may soon see the social damage, madding visual noise and opaque financial machinery of online gambling expand into new, ostensibly more “respectable” terrain, through a profusion of local prediction markets."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "AMABHUNGANE"
author: "Dewald van Rensburg"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/dewaldvanrensburg/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-11-12-bets-on-bets-the-companies-bidding-to-make-your-life-a-gamble/"
published: "2026-11-12T05:30:00"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 5818
---

# Bets on bets: The companies bidding to make your life a gamble

> South Africa may soon see the social damage, madding visual noise and opaque financial machinery of online gambling expand into new, ostensibly more “respectable” terrain, through a profusion of local prediction markets.

By Dewald van Rensburg · Published 12 November 2026, 07:30 SAST

## Key points
- Prediction markets, an ostensibly more respectable addition to the online gambling landscape, are pushing for a place in the already crowded and destructive online South African gambling space.
- The incursion is being driven by a weak regulatory environment, ‘rogue’ provincial gambling boards and the purposeful local expansion of existing international giants.
- The incipient gold rush raises concerns over the evolution of the country’s already-extreme gambling crisis, its paltry regulation and yet another form of potential predation targeting those who do not really know what they are getting themselves into.

## Content

[Media](https://amab-analytics-img.sourcery.info/bets-on-bets-the-companies-bidding-to-make-your-life-a-gamble-DM?iframe)

The catastrophic online gambling epidemic might be taking a new turn.

South Africa is already being swamped with new entrants into the predatory online gambling industry. Some are legally licensed and many are not, but the offering has been more or less uniform – a mix of sports betting and frenetic casino games leased from a coterie of multinational software giants, all of which gets supported by a pliant payment system industry.

*Read our previous reports*[*here*](https://amabhungane.org/south-africas-bad-bet/)*and*[*here*](https://amabhungane.org/sas-gambling-crisis-facilitators-criminals-and-money-launderers/)*.*

But now a few enterprising souls are trying to bring home the major money-trap emerging globally: prediction markets – a technology which, despite boosterism about it being a radical forecasting tool for everything from politics to economics, is, in reality, used predominantly for sports betting.

We’ll traverse the ins and outs later, but essentially these markets allow gamblers to place bets on an eventuality of some sort (usually a sports match outcome but also political and economic events) and then trade those bets with others.

> **EXPLAINER #1: Betting on bets**
>
> *The simplest distinction between “normal” gambling and prediction markets is that prediction markets have no “house” or bookmaker involved. The betting is rather happening on a “peer-to-peer” basis with bettors losing to each other. The prediction market is a middleman, so the pitch goes – just a platform that matches up bettors for a fee.*
>
> ![Gambling Glossary - Predictive Markets. (Credit: AmaB Team)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/OzDGGkdVqFhaYjYfI1HMSDcQLIE=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic1_510816.jpg)
>
> *Gambling Glossary — Predictive Markets. (Credit: amaB Team)*
>
> *The basic idea is this: A bettor finds (or creates) a prediction they’d like to place a bet on, using a platform like Polymarket. Bets on who will triumph in this month’s local government elections have, for instance, appeared on that platform and others mentioned in this story.*
>
> *A bet consists of a binary choice – you have only two options – “yes” or “no”.*
>
> *For instance, you can bet whether or not Helen Zille will be Joburg’s next mayor – and a number of people have done that on Polymarket.*
>
> *What you are doing is buying what we will for simplicity’s sake call a “Zille-token” that will pay out if your “yes” or “no” is the correct outcome i.e. Zille becomes mayor or does not.*
>
> *If you are right, you get the difference between what you paid for your Zille-token and $1. If you guessed wrong you get nothing and lose whatever you paid for your Zille-token.*
>
> ![Zille bets on Polymarket. (Credit: Polymarket Website)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/js9KvGCBZDMBNRdp0Kx_UCyeEP0=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic2_552041.jpg)
>
> *Zille bets on Polymarket. (Credit: Polymarket Website)*
>
> *So that’s the prediction part. Now for the market part.*
>
> *You can technically sell your Zille-tokens to anyone else participating in the market. If you bought your “yes” at, for instance, 60c and sell it to someone at 62c, you’ve made a 2c profit.*
>
> *If you waited it out and won that would have been a profit of 40c.*
>
> *But if Helen Zille loses, you lose the 60c when you would have made 2c if you’d sold the Zille-token.*
>
> *For advocates of prediction markets being something more than gambling, the idea is that lots of people will pile into the market, bringing with them all the knowledge they have about Zille’s chances.*
>
> *This “wisdom of the crowd” then theoretically drives the price of a Zille-token to a point that can reasonably be considered the “correct” prediction of Zille’s mayoral chances – a cent-in-the-dollar value where for instance 62c is equivalent to a 62% chance.*
>
> *A “market consensus” meaningfully above 50% can be seen as a fairly sure-bet prediction for anything from the outcome of a sports match to an election result and many other more (or far less) innocent things.*
>
> *These kinds of market predictions have been remarkably accurate in many cases, particularly with big-ticket events like US political events or economic indicators.*
>
> *This, however, comes with multiple caveats and health warnings, including massive perverse incentives, a spectacular escalation in the value of insider information on all sorts of things, and more technical problems like a lack of liquidity that renders the market essentially dead in the water.*
>
> *As we show later, the insistence that the “crowd” is wise is also arguably massively misplaced.*

Prediction market bets can be dressed up as financial derivatives, but the drift towards ever more “gamified” formats and the enlisting of the entire gamut of psychological addiction-by-design features of normal online casinos is already well documented – as is the fact that prediction markets are “structurally harmful to unskilled retail users”.

![Gambling Glossary - Gamification. (Credit: AmaB Team)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/ZF6PwZ46nM_s2ZLyXEt2X_QbTS0=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic3_452081.jpg)

*Gambling Glossary – Gamification. (Credit: amaB Team)*

The more exotic *non-sport* betting on these platforms is *still* gambling with all the socially destructive consequences this entails.

But prediction markets come with a raft of additional perverse incentives, threatening to create novel avenues for corruption in public and private life culminating in the proverbial “death bet” – the monetisation of catastrophes big and small.

![Gambling Glossary - Perverse Incentives. (Credit: AmaB Team)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/ly1T_UsCxqE5k7-SuR99_Ebvh00=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic4_855931.jpg)

*Gambling Glossary – Perverse Incentives. (Credit: amaB Team)*

The prediction market sector is dominated by an oligopoly led by US giants Kalshi, Polymarket, but also Robinhood and a few others.

But a sudden glut of local and regional efforts targeting South Africa has now materialised, fitting awkwardly into the already weak online gambling regulatory system with many legal experts and even industry players questioning whether they need traditional gambling licences or some other yet-to-be-determined authorisation.

These grey areas have already brought to the fore the massive potential for regulatory arbitrage between South Africa’s provincial gambling boards, with North West in particular being accused of “going rogue” to accommodate prediction markets through the stealthy invention of a new category of gambling licence for “bet exchanges”.

![Gambling Glossary - Regulatory Arbitrage. (Credit: AmaB Team)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/JPydbzCN9SsIvkdQbXeR8gGz2GQ=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic5_835198.jpg)

*Gambling Glossary – Regulatory Arbitrage. (Credit: amaB Team)*

Involved in that regulatory drama (and an attempt at establishing a first-mover advantage through a prediction market called Betmatch) is none other than notorious right-wing commentator and businessman Rob Hersov, but more on that later.

As with other forms of online gambling, the question as to whether prediction markets are actually “legal” seems to be a secondary issue to the risks they pose, although as we’ll see the National Gambling Board (NGB) has taken an unusually strong position in challenging the North West Gambling Board’s (NWGB) attempt to craft a permissive licensing regime to allow prediction markets.

The other significant “bet exchange” established in South Africa this year is BetfairSA, operated by a subsidiary of South African gambling market leader Hollywood Bets. The brand and software is licensed from the UK’s Betfair, the multinational company that as far back as 2000 arguably invented the format which has since evolved into the multibillion-dollar prediction market industry.

We’ll revisit them later as well.

![Gambling Glossary - Betting Exchanges. (Credit: AmaB Team)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/IGUaqz_tNKAH6g_fefnKuERCRiU=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic6_383170.jpg)

*Gambling Glossary – Betting Exchanges. (Credit: amaB Team)*

A false-start attempt came from the country’s foremost cryptocurrency exchange, Luno, which announced that it was creating a market via its existing app in partnership with Limitless – an existing offshore predictions company.

This venture was, however, seemingly almost immediately scrapped, and the company gave us a curt response to questions, saying that “the product as it was delivered was not aligned to Luno’s strategy”.

As is the case with online gambling, South Africa seems to have caught the eye of major international players.

In July this year the global behemoth Polymarket’s Delaware-seated parent company Blockratize registered its trademarks with the South African Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.

A modest step to be sure, but nonetheless indicative of a local plan that could massively affect the course of the inchoate bets-trading business in South Africa, possibly sweeping aside many small would-be providers.

![Polymarket trademark applications. (Credit: Screenshot of CIPC search results showing Polymarket trademark applications)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/UIgMuCzFaOsFfjXY1wpDSBXSQ1k=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic7_354707.jpg)

*Polymarket trademark applications. (Credit: Screenshot of CIPC search results showing Polymarket trademark applications)*

Irrespective, amaBhungane’s interrogation of the emergent sector shows that many of the companies pushing for local iterations of prediction markets are, unsurprisingly, direct offshoots of the wider online gambling sector.

This follows a trend internationally whereby sports gambling behemoths like DraftKings and FanDuel have in the past year introduced their own prediction markets, integrated with their traditional offerings.

That marriage might even be essential to the success of any attempt to create any significant local market, simply for the lack of other major pools of speculative money in the hands of non-specialist “investors” – a key requirement for any given prediction market to actually function.

However, some aspirant prediction markets, often in “beta” phase, essentially amount to the paper-thin repackaging of major international sites.

Others raise red flags about how the sector invites scams or fly-by-night chancers.

As is the case with online casinos in general, the formats of prediction market websites are invariably very similar.

![The Wild West of Prediction Markets. (Credit: Piemarket Facebook page / Polymarket X account / screenshots of the PredictSA / Betcga / Betmarkets / AfriWager and Wayja websites)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/71U_DtRG0CR1fuy0UTTXi5ajEzU=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic8_886185.jpg)

*The Wild West of Prediction Markets. (Credit: Piemarket Facebook page / Polymarket X account / screenshots of the PredictSA / Betcga / Betmarkets / AfriWager and Wayja websites)*

And even when aspirant companies seem sophisticated and entirely above board, the problem is that the nature of these bets piles a dismal array of extreme perverse incentives and a smorgasbord of opportunities for corruption on top of traditional gambling harm.

The severe social damage being wrought by online gambling is after all, by and large, driven by perfectly legal, licenced companies.

For prediction markets to fully achieve the kind of additional harm they potentially threaten, they would need to reach a critical mass in terms of users and liquidity, a challenge we will address.

![Gambling Glossary - Liquidity. (Credit: AmaB Team)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/dcODoc_tqjWxYuEXLmEya0ttsX0=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic9_697023.jpg)

*Gambling Glossary – Liquidity. (Credit: amaB Team)*

But before we enter the weeds, it is important to reiterate the foremost real-world fact about these markets: the primary use for them globally, by a very wide margin, is sports betting.

At the world’s single largest prediction market, Kalshi, sport accounts for more than 80% of activity. Polymarket, regarded as the second largest exchange, sees more than 40% of its business in sports betting.

Whatever else prediction markets achieve, they are inarguably gambling platforms. The regulatory question really seems to be whether they are something else impermissible in addition.

The National Gambling Board – and local gambling industry lobby group SA Bookmakers Association (Saba) – insist that’s the case, and we’ll unpack their objections.

But back to the inchoate local prediction market scene and the people driving it.

### **The prediction-gambling nexus**

It is telling that local aspirants, from big to small, are in fact rooted in the world of more traditional online casinos.

A recent arrival that started bombarding South Africans with ads on social media is [Predictions.Africa](http://Predictions.Africa) – the brainchild of Zimbabwean tech entrepreneur Victor Mapunga.

![New kid on the block: Predictions.Africa. (Credit: Predictions.Africa website / X (formerly Twitter)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/Rq8EcZzElNKLJylMwYJEI70IUH0=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic10_286557.jpg)

*New kid on the block: Predictions.Africa. (Credit: Predictions.Africa website / X (formerly Twitter)*

[Predictions.Africa](http://Predictions.Africa) has a seemingly fully functional site and accepts real money deposits. The platform is, however, really a subsection of Mapunga’s gambling website StakeBoss, which operates under a licence from Anjouan, a gambling licensing hub in the Comoro Islands.

![StakeBoss and Predictions.Africa: A new name, familiar playbook. (Credit: Predictions.Africa website / X (formerly Twitter) / StakeBoss website)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/Zy5VB3JIqT3jgcACkeKycd5HHKU=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic11_519056.jpg)

*StakeBoss and Predictions.Africa: A new name, familiar playbook. (Credit: Predictions.Africa website / X (formerly Twitter) / StakeBoss website)*

StakeBoss is furthermore a registered company in South Africa, and given the seeming absence of a local gambling licence the site is very much illegal to use in South Africa.

This prediction market has another peculiarity in that all the bets it offers are carbon copies of ones available on Polymarket.

This is despite marketing promising wagers on hyperlocal events like the timely completion of roads. What distinguishes [Predictions.Africa](http://Predictions.Africa) from Polymarket is its integration with a gambling sister site.

[Predictions.Africa](http://Predictions.Africa) raises red flags that should give pause to would-be users of small regional startups.

For one thing, it seems to be impossible to withdraw whatever money you put in or have theoretically won.

Essentially, you are encouraged to withdraw money in the form of vouchers – for use on the associated gambling site. There are promises that money can be withdrawn using yet another Mapunga company – a crypto exchange called ZambeziX – although that doesn’t seem to work and, in any case, would entail stiff double fees.

None of this is declared upfront, and ultimately the whole enterprise amounts to putting money into a gambling ecosystem – and not getting it out.

Mapunga did not answer our questions, but the scheme of packaging a prediction market together with an online casino to create a financial loop will crop up again.

### **Doppelganger**

Another hopeful that has not quite got its offering up and running, boldly called itself [Polymarket.co.za](http://Polymarket.co.za) despite having no relationship whatsoever with the real Polymarket.

![Two Polymarkets, one trademark. (Credit: Polymarket US website / CIPC search results / X (formerly Twitter) / screenshot of the Polymarket SA website)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/J7F2TeJJOCaAnUOyhq-I4y5FVBs=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic12_200480.jpg)

*Two Polymarkets, one trademark. (Credit: Polymarket US website / CIPC search results / X (formerly Twitter) / screenshot of the Polymarket SA website)*

The local company’s director, Louis Chambi, told us that he was not going to put up a fight to hold on to the name.

The local (to be renamed) [Polymarket.co.za](http://Polymarket.co.za) had already set up another website called Betpoly which, the footer advises, is the “official content partner of [Polymarket.co.za](http://Polymarket.co.za) – South Africa’s #1 Prediction Market”.

It has produced guides for how to pay money into the planned [Polymarket.co.za](http://Polymarket.co.za) and, as observed in relation to the international experience, seemingly planned to focus on sports betting.

It even put out an evidently aspirational mock-up of what its app would look like.

![Betpoly: The Polymarket copycat. (Credit: Betpoly website)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/MpT6WtwBEjVRP6rHXue7P7gPrGE=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic13_517487.jpg)

*Betpoly: The Polymarket copycat. (Credit: Betpoly website)*

Chambi has very much taken the position that a prediction market will require a standard bookmaker licence – and the company has duly applied for such a licence in the Eastern Cape which, Chambi says, is in the adjudication phase.

Chambi, however, also has more than a dozen recently-registered companies that are clearly intended to operate online casinos.

Three of these – [MrBanks.bet](http://MrBanks.bet), [Luckystake.co.za](http://Luckystake.co.za) and [Bet1xtra.co.za](http://Bet1xtra.co.za) – are already up and running. Chambi did not answer questions about this profusion of parallel gambling ventures.

In [Polymarket.co.za](http://Polymarket.co.za), as well as at least one of the above gambling sites, Chambi is a minority shareholder with control really sitting with Durban businessman Warren Frank Mills, who did not answer separate questions amaBhungane sent to him.

This example again shows how prediction markets are very much emerging from the “normal” gambling sector.

A perhaps more worrying aside is that Chambi and his colleagues are evidently attempting to replicate the plan to trade on another internationally-known gambling name.

One of the companies he has registered is Dafabet. This is also the name of a major international gambling brand owned by Filipino group Asian BGE which incidentally sponsors the South African national cricket team, the Proteas, even while having no South African licence, rendering dafabet technically illegal in the country.

Chambi has also registered a local [Packdraw.co.za](http://Packdraw.co.za) – almost indistinguishable from the name of an established UK gambling site, Packdraw.

He did not answer questions about these imitations of major international gambling brands.

If nothing else, this is illustrative of the seemingly suspicious quarters from which local prediction markets may emerge.

This is underscored by a strange online presence called Predict SA, which will greet anyone looking up local prediction markets.

The site has the by now usual trappings of a prediction market but is, according to its terms of service, run by a company that we have established does not exist. Attempts to set up an account were thwarted by a technical error, and none of the email addresses provided on the site work.

Nonetheless, it at best shows interest in the sector by people who probably shouldn’t be there, or are taking a chance by launching massively half-baked efforts.

### **The regulatory ‘pathway’**

Any number of early-stage efforts are being cooked up, with Beta versions appearing online from South Africa and the rest of the continent by eager would-be disruptors.

Uganda has, for instance, produced AfriWager which, while registered in that country, is clearly aiming at the South African market, not least judging by the logo you meet on its Beta page and the fact that it accepts rand.

![Uganda's bet on South Africa: AfriWager. (Credit: Canva; AfriWager website)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/BFTNIWL39StJcpU0l9fThH6vglo=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic14_668813.jpg)

*Uganda’s bet on South Africa: AfriWager. (Credit: Canva; AfriWager website)*

In an industry WhatsApp group the company’s owner Madandi Pius Byekwaso described why, according to him, his company is immune to both gambling and more general financial regulation: “Afriwager is decentralized and for all Africa… If the regulators have control over the blockchain... I’m guilty... we built our infrastructure to be like polymarkets... totally running on the blockchain network.”

Essentially, his argument is that since users pay their money into third party accounts (crypto wallets in this case) to use his platform, he is immune to regulation.

It’s a small illustration, but indicative of the spirit in which some startups approach regulation.

There have been strategic retreats by some aspirant prediction market operators due to what others see as a regulatory grey zone.

On the more respectable-looking end of the spectrum is a company called Suppple Group, which is planning a prediction market off the back of an existing bookmaker licence by forming a joint venture with licenced gambling operator Ansino, which currently manages physical slots in various locations.

Suppple CEO Goitse Konopi says the “timetable has shifted” after an initial plan to launch Predikt early this year – but that their market is definitely still a go.

Another local attempt at setting up a prediction market was Wayja. According to its creator, Reece Jacobson, the project was wound down after beta testing due to there being “no viable licensing pathway for the product in South Africa”.

Ultimately though, despite there being hand-wringing about whether or not an expanded legal regime will be established at some point, a local industry is already rapidly emerging.

And in at least one corner of officialdom this is being encouraged.

### **The ‘rogue’ regulator**

The local gambling industry lobby group SA Bookmakers Association (Saba) has taken up the cudgels to defend its turf against prediction markets, or what are technically called “bet exchanges” – essentially the same thing except that the latter operates entirely in the world of sports betting. These exchanges are generally credited with being the spiritual predecessors of the prediction platforms we now know.

This has put Saba on a collision course with one of the country’s provincial gambling regulators, the North West Gambling Board (NWGB), which has dramatically demonstrated the threat of regulatory arbitrage in South Africa’s fragmented provincial gambling licensing scheme.

The provinces have an incentive to compete for gambling licensees, since gambling companies pay a gambling tax into provincial treasuries – not the national fiscus. At the same time, the negative externalities are not limited to provincial borders.

The result: a massive incentive to collect the most tax and let everyone else deal with the social damage done.

To date the Western Cape and then Mpumalanga have by far been the leading jurisdictions by issuing the most licences, but lately the Eastern Cape has upped its game – and now North West seems to have played a trump card.

![Gambling Glossary - Trading Bets. (Credit: AmaB Team)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/Lwu9bYhXzkzB1QpPBj0-6tDVFso=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic15_463266.jpg)

*Gambling Glossary - Trading Bets. (Credit: amaB Team)*

Essentially, the North West Gambling Board has introduced a newfangled kind of licence specifically for bet exchanges which, in the fine print, seem designed for multipurpose prediction markets.

An initial Request for Applications was actually published in October 2022 indicating that the North West Gambling Board intended to issue eight bet exchange licences, explaining: “The licence/s to be issued under this RFA shall be for a bet exchange bookmaker operation which shall authorise the successful applicant/s to conduct a business of providing a platform for members of the public an opportunity to lay or back bets between themselves on any legal contingency.”

This comes with the caveats that betting “shall be limited to legal activities” and that bets cannot be offered on “betting on futures and/or stock trading” – seemingly a neat evasion of encroaching on the regulatory turf of authorities dealing with financial services.

The SA Bookmakers Association’s arguments against this licensing regime are concise and, while naturally self-serving, not necessarily wrong:

Prediction markets are a species of gambling, but worse because they create moral hazards old-fashioned casinos and sports betting do not. Even if you stick to sports betting on a bet exchange (check our explainer above), you are still operating something that does not exist in South African law.

As such, the prediction markets require a specific regulatory regime involving not only gambling law, but also the regulation of the things that could be bet on, including financial markets and even elections and, until all that comes about, prediction markets should be illegal, says Saba.

Ironically, critics have said the same about the SA Bookmakers Association’s constituency, the normal bookmakers operating online casinos.

There is also no express allowance for these in South Africa’s 2004 National Gambling Act, and the sector has shoe-horned itself into the bookmaker licensing regime that was meant for physical bookies.

According to the lobby group’s CEO, Sean Coleman, Saba has resorted to formal information requests under the Promotion of Access to Information Act to squeeze details out of the North West Gambling Board about the bet exchange licences it has issued.

To date, it is not clear how many of these licences exist and the North West Gambling Board did not respond to our questions.

The National Gambling Board has taken an unusually strong line against prediction markets.

It told amaBhungane: “Where a prediction market operates through a betting exchange model, facilitating bets between members of the public rather than accepting bets as a bookmaker, the National Gambling Board’s position is that such an arrangement is not permitted under the current legislative framework, as it falls outside the activities authorised under a bookmaker licence.

“In relation to the specific operators mentioned in the enquiry, determining whether their proposed activities are lawful would require examination of their licensing conditions and actual operating arrangements.”

The National Gambling Board has gone so far as to raise a finding against the North West Gambling Board concerning the issuance of bet exchange licences to bookmakers: “The matter is before the National Gambling Policy Council \[NGPC\] for resolution.”

Chaired by the minister of Trade, Industry and Competition and composed of provincial Members of the Executive Council (MECs) responsible for gambling, the National Gambling Policy Council’s regulatory powers focus on high-level cooperative governance, legislative harmonisation, and oversight rather than day-to-day licensing, but it can issue binding resolutions.

> ***EXPLAINER TWO: Walks like gambling, talks like gambling…***
>
> *Prediction markets capture users using the entire toolkit deployed by the online casino industry.*
>
> *These include everything from the paid referrals of friends, promos and welcome bonuses through to the dopamine-inducing positive feedback loops in the form of leaderboards, special badges for winners and game-like visual interfaces designed to keep you busy and disorientated.*
>
> *And while the biggest winners are held up for all to celebrate and compete with, it is harder to see the biggest losers – something that is of course true with casino sites as well.*
>
> *“These features – designed to trigger stereotyped, cue-induced behaviours that are insensitive to outcome value and associated with dopamine rushes and decision-making shortcuts – push users, particularly those with lower statistical literacy, into cycles of excessive participation, impulsive decisions, and escalating risks,” according to recent academic*[*research*](https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1877&context=iplj)*.*
>
> *Where some prediction markets openly call what they offer “betting”, others use terms like “forecasting” or, as at Polymarket, “taking a position” – terminology that implies that users are really applying their mind and making considered bets based on some kind of actual knowledge.*
>
> *However, the reality of prediction markets is that the vast majority of people don’t know what they are doing.*
>
> *Prediction markets’ claim to fame of harnessing the crowd’s wisdom also seems to have shaky foundations, with*[*research*](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6617059)*showing that the sometimes remarkable accuracy of their outcomes is really driven by about 3% of the user base – a skilled minority.*
>
> [*Research*](https://www.osc.ca/sites/default/files/2026-10/research-grant-competition-2026-who-wins-and-who-loses-in-prediction-markets.pdf)*using five years of data from Polymarket has also found that over 50% of all profits accrue to 0.1% of users, and 76.5% goes to the top 1%. About 70% of users consistently lose money.*
>
> *That is arguably not a very wise crowd, but rather the chaos of what researchers have called “uninformed noise bettors” whose role in the system is mostly to provide the money others will win.*
>
> *Considering the near certainty that most peoples’ bets will result in losses, the underlying economics of prediction markets, which rely on fairly stiff fees on all trades, makes them “structurally harmful to unskilled traders”.*
>
> *This sounds all too familiar.*

### **The (‘centre’) right-wing**

The first company to seize on the North West Gambling Board’s controversial “bet exchange” regime is seemingly ZAR Prive, which first, recently, set up a sporting bet exchange called Betmatch and has now launched a broader prediction market under the same umbrella (and licence). The launch was in October this year.

![Betmatch: First to test the betting exchange model. (Credit: Canva / Betmatch website)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/kG8t_gKeKZozUQuR9NWyRgmCOmw=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic16_635126.jpg)

*Betmatch: First to test the betting exchange model. (Credit: Canva / Betmatch website)*

One week into operation, as of writing, the prediction market still offered mostly sports-related bets, but has also taken bets on the South African local elections with some small traction. The website promises to imminently add a full casino offering to the mix.

It appears that one half of the team behind this early-mover local prediction market is Rob Hersov, a man better known for right-wing activism, his outspoken support of Israel and his railing against South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

The owner of ZAR Prive/Betmatch is, however, tech entrepreneur Nicholas John French, who is also seemingly the force behind the self-proclaimed “centre-right” news site Truth Report, featuring regular videos from, among others, Hersov, Ronaldo Gouws, Gareth Cliff and a few other conservative economic and political pundits.

French told us that Hersov had loan-funded ZAR Prive but was not a shareholder.

Coincidently, the top news item on French’s site when we visited it was a video railing against the possible imposition of new taxes on gambling – a proposal floated by the National Treasury.

The involvement of apparently well-resourced backers for what might become the first major local prediction market might be a costly lesson for the growing number of bootstrap hopefuls.

It seems likely that other attempts at creating prediction markets will likewise integrate complimentary casino and prediction formats with gamblers’ funds pooled all in one place.

This kind of arrangement seems well suited to address the main problem faced by a small start-up prediction market: liquidity.

### **The racing crowd**

Another early mover is Race Coast Western Cape, the horse racing subsidiary of South Africa’s major online casino group, HollywoodBets.

Race Coast already ran not only races but also [Luckyfish.co.za](http://Luckyfish.co.za), very much in the mold of most online gambling sites.

In June this year the company however launched BetfairSA, a bet exchange using one of the North West Gambling Board’s new licences. Race Coast however told us that it had bought this licence last year, suggesting that the regulator had initially granted it to someone else.

BetfairSA carries the name of the pioneering UK gambling group Betfair, which is widely credited with inventing the modern prediction market system through its bet exchange established as far back as 2000.

Race Coast told us it entered into a “white label software agreement” with Betfair’s parent company Flutter Entertainment PLC – a conglomerate listed on the New York Stock Exchange that owns not only Betfair but also FanDuel and several other major gambling brands.

The deal “allows Race Coast Western Cape to operate as an agent of Betfair in South Africa under the trading name Betfair SA”, the company told us.

Once again it appears that significant international roleplayers are starting to make themselves felt in the South African market.

And with backing from HollywoodBets, this operation is presumably well resourced, something that matters beyond the ability to set up a sleek and functional operation.

As we have shown, this is not the case with other efforts to create prediction markets.

### **Small fry (and the case for casino capital)**

In the larger scheme of things, any attempt to create a start-up prediction market relying on relatively tiny markets like South Africa will struggle.

The problem is volume.

It’s all very good and well to place bets on Bafana Bafana or municipal elections – or more controversial things like the date of Jacob Zuma’s death for that matter – but who are you betting against? Where is the money you hope to win coming from, not to mention the other bettors?

There are essentially two models. Either the exchange (or a non-betting liquidity provider) provides capital to make markets liquid, or the platform is so well established and the bet so popular that enough money will rapidly pool in from actual bettors to make things work.

Liquidity providers essentially place bets on both sides of the market so that there is always someone to trade with – with the liquidity provider always buying and selling at a small profit to itself. They often get recruited with fees and incentives by the prediction market.

A ready pool of funds is needed to kick-start any market that would function as a gambling game – or provide the payoffs for perverse bets to which we’ll turn shortly.

It is speculation, but local operators setting up both casino and prediction operations under a single umbrella have just this kind of pool at hand, possibly avoiding the need for attracting outside capital at a cost.

As mentioned earlier, major international gambling groups have recently added predictions to their traditional fare. This is both a defensive manoeuvre and a tapping of a new market.

Integration also provides a ready audience using the same account to effortlessly jump between the casino and the prediction market on a single site.

Betmatch, the seeming first-mover we met earlier that is carrying out this precise kind of one-site strategy, says the integration of its different kinds of gambling offerings is more due to practical synergies than pooling resources.

“Liquidity is important to any exchange product. Integration provides infrastructure on which to build, but does not by itself establish commercial viability. That will depend on demand for the permitted markets, participation, liquidity and confidence in how outcomes are determined and settled.”

South Africans are able to (illegally on account of their lack of local licences) access the major international prediction markets, raising the question whether there is even any business rationale for local iterations.

First-movers like Betmatch and aspirants like Suppple both say the big sell is providing a safe and legal alternative – as well as one that creates betting opportunities on niche local issues.

It is also much easier for most people to put money into local gambling sites than into, for instance, the crypto-based international giant Polymarket, something that will probably dissuade many users among South Africa’s mass gambling public.

South Africa-related bets on Polymarket are also noticeably stagnant, with little to no activity on most of them.

Returning to our example in the explainer above, only 16 people control most of the trade in “Zille-tokens” on Polymarket.

And these do not seem to be people with any special insight or interest in the elections. The largest participants in the Zille market are huge international accounts with small bets on a dizzying array of obscure local political events all over the world. These are not people exercising any kind of considered judgement (or who even know who Zille is), but rather people executing a mass-hedging strategy.

These are also not people likely to move over to a fragmented universe of small regional exchanges to chase things like Zille tokens.

Either South Africa or the region will develop at least one significant prediction market of its own – or its gamblers are going to have to join the offshore giants in far greater numbers.

And again, this makes the existing popular gambling sites the most likely breeding ground.

But now let’s turn to the fundamental problems with prediction markets irrespective of where the bets are placed.

### **The ‘death bet’**

The prediction market industry conjures up textbook perverse incentives, revolving around insider trading and self-fulfilling prophesies, when those who can influence events bet on those same events.

![Gambling Glossary - Insider trading. (Credit: AmaB Team)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/c-V97kpH7q8ikvcvhkZY3mGsc3I=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/amab-MarketspredictionGraphic17_505501.jpg)

*Gambling Glossary – Insider trading. (Credit: amaB Team)*

French researcher Paul Oudin[proposed a taxonomy](https://amabhungane.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/7053718.pdf) for the kind of bettors you might find on prediction markets: exogenous informed traders who know something others do not; endogenous traders who actually have some influence on events; and the gen-pop, the thousands of small, relatively ignorant retail bettors that have turned the markets into a multibillion-dollar guessing-game industry.

Being informed is obviously always an advantage. A seismologist betting on an earthquake will probably have an edge, as would an economist betting on the next inflation rate announcement.

True insider trading is, however, something else – something where massive opportunities for profiteering have proliferated and sensitive information has been commodified.

The American experience includes a famous case of a soldier who placed a bet on then Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro being deposed – right before the US carried out a coup.

The US has in fact had several cases of military personnel betting on military events, while there was also a more prosaic incident involving a group of KPMG auditors making eerily accurate predictions on the financial results of the companies they audit.

Imagine knowing beforehand what new madcap executive order will be issued by Donald Trump!

What would a well-functioning South African prediction market commodify?

You can technically bet on war, genocide and assassinations – all real-world examples.

While this might not faze some from an inherently ethical position, it is hard to see a world where so-called “endogenous” traders do not arise to exploit negative outcomes of all sorts.

Think of the medical personnel at, for example, Jacob Zuma’s deathbed. How much could they win with sure information about the former president’s condition – should South Africa develop a prediction market large and deep enough to monetise their knowledge?

Then think, hypothetically, of that nurse at Zuma’s bedside who must decide on the dose of morphine and might make a great deal of money with a small slip of the hand. Also think more catastrophically (and still hypothetically) of the man holding matches betting that Cape Town’s wildfires will be particularly bad this year. These are the “endogenous” bettors mentioned above.

These are extreme examples, but variations on the theme are entirely within the realm of possibility.

An entire new kind of universal corruption has been invented for everyone from policemen and soldiers to political insiders, businessmen, mob-mobilising anti-migrant vigilantes and really anyone in a position to influence events of public interest.

A “Death Bets Bill” is before the US Congress to outlaw betting on anyone’s death – a prohibition with obvious benefits.

It calls to mind South Africa’s chilling “killsurance” scams where people unknowingly have multiple life insurance policies taken out on their name – and then get murdered for a payout to the scammer-murderer.

This is more or less how a completely unbridled prediction market would work.

But for now all eyes should be on how the emergent prediction market sector shows itself in the context of a crippling gambling epidemic.

A safe bet is that it will be more of the same with some poisonous cherries on top. **DM**

*This story was produced by the*[http://bhekisisa.org./](http://bhekisisa.org./)[*amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism*](https://amabhungane.org/)*. Sign up for their*[*newsletter*](https://amabhungane.org/#newsletter)*.*