NSFAS and gambling board unite to curb student online betting crisis

Following Daily Maverick’s reporting that some tertiary education students are deep into online gambling and are using their National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) allowance to fund their online betting accounts, NSFAS and the National Gambling Board (NGB) have joined forces to tackle the problem.

Read more: Students wager NSFAS allowances and their futures at online betting sites

NSFAS acting chief executive officer Waseem Carrim said discussions with the NGB began in 2025 after reports emerged of students using their NSFAS allowances for gambling.

“NSFAS has been engaging the National Gambling Board since 2025. The campaign will be rolled out in institutions throughout 2026,” said Carrim. “The National Gambling Board, as the regulator of betting companies, will be engaging the betting companies on various strategies to curb this practice.”

The investigation found that some students were spending their NSFAS allowances on gambling platforms, including Betway, Hollywoodbets and Sportsbet. In a joint statement released on Wednesday, 18 February, NSFAS and NGB said the partnership sought to empower students with knowledge, awareness and responsible decision-making skills.

Students gamble for various reasons. Second-year Public Management student Mudzanani Thuvhusiwi from Walter Sisulu University told Daily Maverick, “I am in pursuit of a soft life. Sometimes you see people winning a lot of money, and I also want to win.” Another student at the same institution said she gambled to support her household because NSFAS funding was not enough.

Carrim said, “NSFAS funding is intended to support students’ educational journey and essential living needs. When these funds are diverted to gambling, it can undermine academic success and long-term financial wellbeing. This partnership focuses on prevention, awareness and empowering students to make informed choices that support their future.”

NGB acting chief executive officer Lungile Dukwana said, “This partnership prioritises the protection of young people through harm reduction approaches that prevent the development of harmful gambling behaviours. Particular attention will be given to the growing normalisation of gambling through digital advertising platforms, social media and mobile applications, which increasingly affects students.”

Key points to raise awareness

NSFAS and NGB said the partnership would:

• Implement nationwide outreach and on-campus education programmes;
• Deliver targeted education and awareness campaigns on financial literacy and the risks of online and illegal gambling;
• Engage with students through workshops, dialogues and on-campus activations focused on prevention, harm reduction and informed decision-making; and
• Share information, within the framework of applicable legislation, to strengthen education, monitoring and preventative interventions.

The entities are expected to formalise the collaboration in the coming weeks through the signing of a memorandum of understanding, establishing a governance framework for joint interventions.

Daily Maverick asked Carrim how far NSFAS was with plans to track how students spend their allowances.

“NSFAS is focused on its stabilisation programme, which targets consistent on-time disbursements to institutions and students. A more thorough tracked disbursement process is only likely in 2027,” he said.

Ongoing interactions

Rise Mzansi MP Makashule Gana welcomed the move, but said it should not be a one-off visit to campuses.

“If you have an activation at a university, there must be ongoing interactions or ongoing awareness because one of the challenges that we generally have in South Africa is that people will go to a university, speak to that set of students and believe that they’ve done awareness on gambling, whereas this kind of a sketch requires ongoing awareness on the part of the National Gambling Board, the Responsible Gambling Foundation, NSFAS and the students,” said Gana.

“I advocate that the universities need to get involved in research on the prevalence of gambling addiction, because if there’s one thing that’s missing in South Africa, it’s just ongoing research on the harms associated with gambling and gambling addiction, especially amongst students.”

Read more: Gambling bodies move to deny student loan and social grant beneficiaries access to gambling

Separately, the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation and the SA Bookmakers’ Association said they were working on a strategy to introduce safeguards for beneficiaries of the South African Social Security Agency and NSFAS. The proposed system would aim to deny access and account creation to individuals identified as recipients of social grants or student allowances. DM