Africa's Responsible Gambling Bodies Form a Continent-Wide Network

Gamble Pause Initiative Africa, Gamble Aware Nigeria and the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation have formed the ARGN, with participants from nine more countries, to build a continent-wide evidence base on gambling harm. Its president says regulators must legislate before the costs land on Africa's health systems.

• The African Responsible Gaming Network (ARGN) has launched as a continent-wide platform bringing together responsible gaming organisations, researchers, treatment specialists, advocates and industry stakeholders, NEXT.io reported on Monday
• Its founding partners are Gamble Pause Initiative Africa, Gamble Aware Nigeria and the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation, with participants from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Cameroon, Uganda and Eswatini, and support from outside the continent including Austria
• Four priorities: a continent-wide evidence base on gambling harm, better access to treatment, recovery and support, policy recommendations and responsible gaming measures, and coordinated awareness and prevention campaigns
• Lebo Seoheng, advocacy and communications manager at the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation, is the network's first president
• "Regulators must create a safer environment through effective legislation and regulations to reduce gambling-related harm," Seoheng said, warning that untreated harm could "overburden Africa's healthcare systems"

The Continent's Harm Bodies Have Stopped Working Country by Country

Africa's responsible gambling organisations have formed a single network for the first time, according to NEXT.io. The African Responsible Gaming Network launched on Monday with three founding partners, Gamble Pause Initiative Africa, Gamble Aware Nigeria and the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation, and participants from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Cameroon, Uganda and Eswatini. It also has support from organisations outside Africa, including in Austria.

The network describes itself as a unified African platform for responsible gambling, education, prevention, treatment, research and policy development. Its work is organised around four priorities: developing a continent-wide evidence base on gambling harm, improving access to treatment, recovery and support services, developing policy recommendations and responsible gaming measures, and coordinating awareness and prevention campaigns. Until now, NEXT.io notes, the organisations involved had focused on their own countries and regulatory environments rather than collaborating.

Lebo Seoheng, advocacy and communications manager for the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation, will serve as president. "The African iGaming market is a rapidly growing market," he said. "As online and sports betting expand their offering and continental market share, it is important that player protection and responsible gambling remain at the centre of their operations for a sustainable market." He put the onus on governments: "Regulators must create a safer environment through effective legislation and regulations to reduce gambling-related harm, which may lead to gambling addiction and other related mental health and behavioural addictions and as a consequence overburden Africa's healthcare systems."

The founding members bring different models. The South African foundation is funded by the country's licensed industry and runs the national treatment and counselling programme under the National Responsible Gambling Programme; Nigeria's body operates in a market where Lagos State launched a self-exclusion tool this year and the federal government has abolished VAT on stakes; Gamble Pause Initiative Africa is the third founder. No funding model for the network, and no budget, was disclosed.

The Evidence Base Is the Priority That Matters, Because Almost Nobody Has One

Africa's regulated betting markets have grown on mobile money and football with almost no prevalence data behind them: the studies that exist are small, single-country and often commissioned, and policymakers in Nairobi, Lagos or Lusaka arguing for stake limits or advertising rules have no continental figure to cite. A network whose first stated priority is a shared evidence base is aiming at the right gap. Whether it can fill it depends on money the announcement does not mention, and on operators being willing to share the data that operators in Europe are now required to share. The industry's own account of African growth has rarely come with a harm number attached; the ARGN's usefulness will be measured by whether it produces one.

A President From the Industry-Funded Model Will Be Asked Who Pays

The South African foundation is the most established body on the continent and the obvious source of a first president, and it is also the one whose funding comes from the licensed operators it monitors. That is the standard model in Britain and elsewhere, and it carries the standard question about independence, which the network will inherit. The founding statement's emphasis on regulators legislating, rather than on operators volunteering, is the more interesting signal: it places the ARGN closer to the advocacy end of the spectrum than to the industry-partnership end, and that positioning will decide which governments and which operators engage with it.

Africa's responsible gambling bodies have a network and a president. They now need a dataset and a budget, and the announcement mentions neither.