SA’s casino industry down on its luck

SA’s casino industry has been in business for 21 years, a period during which it has grown into one operating 38 casinos, providing direct and indirect employment to 60,000 people and generating annual gross gaming revenue (GGR) of around R18bn. It is also an industry facing a multitude of challenges, not least pedestrian GGR growth. In the first decade of its existence the casino industry enjoyed double-digit annual growth in GGR. That changed in 2008 when the global financial crisis plunged SA’s economy into a recession, from which the industry has yet to recover fully. In the nine years to March 2017, GGR crept ahead at an annual average of a mere 3.47%, with the first decline in its history recorded in 2016/2017, when it fell 1.8% to R17.84bn. The growth pace is even bleaker when measured in terms of total casino revenue. This is in essence the value of money wagered, including "recycling", which refers to amounts staked on more than one occasion during a casino visit. In 2016 m...