Many in South Africa see gaming as surer bet than job

Mike Cohen

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2001 | 9:28 a.m.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- With a gleam in his eye, Steven Kareka explains his quick-fix answer to a lifetime of poverty.

"I think I can win the lottery," the unemployed 25-year-old says as he joins a long line of people waiting on a dusty sidewalk to buy lottery tickets at Ye-Ye's Butchery in the working class suburb of Langa.

In South Africa, with one-third unemployment and some workers earning the equivalent of only $24 a month, many poor people view their chances of winning the lottery or hitting a jackpot in the country's new casinos as better than those of securing a decent job.

Egged on by slick advertising campaigns, South Africans are expected to spend nearly $1 billion on gambling this year.

Under the stern Christian ethos of South Africa's white apartheid rulers, gambling was banned in most of the country. South Africa's few casinos were relegated to remote "homelands," desolate regions ruled by puppet black governments where South Africa banished many of its blacks.

After the fall of apartheid in 1994, gambling laws were liberalized and the government decided to grant 40 casino licenses.

With 24 of those issued, casinos have sprung up in all the major cities. Now plans are in the works to issue licenses for 50,000 limited-payout slot machines.

Elsewhere in Africa, casinos are usually small, glitzy halls in high-priced hotels that cater mostly to the wealthy. Many nations don't even bother to run lotteries. However, despite widespread poverty, South Africans have far more money than the rest of Africa.

South Africa's gambling industry boasts it has created 15,000 new jobs and invested more than $1.2 billion in new projects. This year it will pay more than $90 million in gaming taxes.

But politicians, who initially heralded legalized gambling, are having second thoughts, fearing it is wreaking social havoc and making the poor even worse off.

"The practice in some of these casinos is to pick up people from their residential areas in the evening, especially (retirees), and transport them to the casinos, so they can gamble away their meager savings," said Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya.

Pawn shops near Cape Town's huge GrandWest casino say their trade has soared, with housewives hocking household appliances for gambling money. On most nights, people of all races, ages and income groups pack the casino, feeding rumpled notes into ranks of slot machines.

The lottery, which for 30 cents gives players a 1-in-14 million chance of winning a weekly jackpot of about $490,000, is regarded as even more of a problem. Tickets are available at about 7,000 outlets.

"It is easily available and appeals to the poorest of the poor," said Rodger Meyer, treatment director for the National Responsible Gambling Program.

People have spent some $410 million on the lottery since it began in March 2000.

Natasha Nkosi, a 16-year-old waiting outside Maggie's takeout in Langa to buy six tickets for her mother, says it's a waste.

"My mum is very poor. She wants to win so she can buy a house for herself. Sometimes when she dreams the numbers, she uses the money (meant) for food," Natasha says.

Rene Dayele, 18, who is buying two tickets for her uncle, also believes the money could be better spent. "With this money you can get a loaf of bread and two eggs," she says. "They are not going to win."

Gambling has taken a toll on other industries. Soft drink manufacturers and magazine publishers have reported declining sales.

Meyer, at the National Responsible Gambling Program, said there has been a steady rise in problem gambling. The program's help line gets 400 to 500 calls a month.

The number of problem gamblers is proportionately higher than in developed countries, said professor Peter Collins, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Gambling at the University of Cape Town.

"For South Africans, gambling is also a novelty, and one about which undereducated people are likely to have dangerous misconceptions -- such as that gambling is a good investment," he said.