Turning Totems

What is Turning Totems?

Online growth drove Sun International’s group income up 7.4% to R6.58 billion during H1 when excluding the Table Bay Hotel (TBH), which the company is running under a management agreement with IHG.

At the company’s Capital Markets Day in March, Sun International outlined plans to double SunBet’s share of the South African online market from its 4.5%.

While the company did not comment on how its market share had progressed since then, on Sun International’s post-H1 earnings call on Mondat, Bengtsson reiterated that product was key for its next phase of expansion.

What is Turning Totems?

Its findings contained an all-too-familiar combination of ineffective systems, delayed interventions and inadequate source-of-funds controls. One customer placed approximately 4,800 bets in one day and 7,000 the next without being flagged. Another, whose payslips showed monthly earnings of about £2,000, deposited and lost £9,000 in four days.

“What is striking here is the level of activity that apparently failed to trigger effective intervention,” Williams says. “These were obvious indicators requiring further scrutiny, and it is difficult to understand why they did not result in more effective intervention.”

He adds that the recurring weakness is often not an absence of policies but a failure to ensure “technology, algorithms and operational processes actually work in practice”. Some of the QuinnBet issues followed a platform migration, underlining the need to retest controls whenever systems change.

How to play Turning Totems

Moshupa/Manyana MP Karabo Gare opposed the lower age limit during parliamentary debate. “When a person is still 18, he or she cannot make informed decisions, hence they end up being addicted to the game,” he said.

Botswana Congress Party MP Kenny Kapinga also argued that parliament should retain the current minimum age of 21, saying younger adults remained vulnerable to early exposure to gambling.

In January, Acting Gambling Authority CEO Moruntshi Kemorwale said reported problem gambling had declined from 5% in 2020 to 3.4% in 2025. It was a change he attributed in part to the regulator’s National Responsible Gambling Programme and nationwide education and outreach.