Namibia’s gambling industry revenues plummeted by 77% from N$338 million in 2019/20 to N$76.6 million in the 2020/21 financial year due to restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19, the government has said.
According to the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT), the country’s gambling sector operators paid N$33.8 million in levies for the 2019/20 financial year, a figure which later plunged to N$7.66 million for the 2020/21 period.
“There has been a drastic decrease in revenue due to COVID-19. With restrictions on movement by countries the gambling industry was the most affected industry as they were either not allowed to operate or operate on less hours,” MEFT Spokesperson Romeo Muyunda said in response to an inquiry from The Brief.
It, however, emerged that the Ministry currently does not have a mechanism to verify the revenues generated, with the government department solely relying on industry players to supply the figures.
“Levies were charged with 10% on monthly income and since there was no monitoring system in place, the Board had to rely on the statements submitted by the operators. The former Board has been collecting annual license fees which are charged on fixed amounts plus penalties charged on late payments and the Board has control over these payments,” Muyunda said.
He added that the Ministry was reviewing a new casino application, while plans were underway to seek operators of a planned national lottery, with the idea having already been endorsed, with proceeds expected to fund various government-led initiatives in education and sports.
“We have 6 licensed casinos. We have one casino application. There will only be one national Lotto in the country that will be put out as a tender,” the MEFT Spokesperson said.
He said the Ministry was concerned about the mushrooming of betting houses in the country and was now working on licensing modalities.
“Betting was not regulated under the old law, Act 1994, but the new law, Act 2018 has made provision for betting to be regulated. Under the New Act, Betting is regulated under Bookmaker license, which means that one requires a bookmaker license to operate a betting company,” Muyunda said.
The MEFT spokesperson, however, could not specify the number of betting shops operating in the country.
“Currently we do not have statistics of betting houses in Namibia. We can only know once we start with the licensing process of such activities,” he said.
On what measures have been put in place to safeguard society against the negative impact of betting in Namibia and the proliferation of match fixing in sports as a result, the MEFT Spokesperson said, “Section 77 and 49 has put measurements how to protect the society from irresponsible gambling. We will benchmark what is happening elsewhere in the world to inform our decisions in this regard, through the board we will address such challenges as they come.”
This comes as the Ministry last year established the Gambling Control Board to oversee the gambling industry. The Board is led by Ben Shikongo as Chairperson, deputized by Toska Sem, while Erastus Johannes, Josua Kaumbi, Sandra Owoses, Amanda Heydenreich, and Uerijeta Kauaria are board members.
