A quiet revolution is taking place in the African betting market on the payment front. Last November, Super Group announced the launch of the digital currency ZAR Supercoin in South Africa, pegged 1:1 with the rand, and it entered the soft testing phase in mid-April this year. This multinational company is betting on cryptocurrency, with a very real calculation behind it—in Africa, payment processing fees are its largest single expense after taxes. How significant? As CEO Neil Menashe puts it, in sports betting, players deposit and withdraw repeatedly, and the cost of handling the same money multiple times just keeps climbing. This move could potentially be a tipping point for crypto gambling in Africa, which PASA's official website will continue to track.
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Menashe was quite straightforward in the Q1 earnings call on May 12: "In Africa, our biggest single post-tax expense is these processing fees, especially on the sports betting side." Super Group's financial report also corroborates how important the African market is—annual revenue grew by $396.8 million to $2.2 billion, with total gambling revenue in the African market jumping 27%. South Africa, as the largest and most industrialized economy in Africa, typically contributes 30% to 39% of the group's total revenue.
ZAR Supercoin is currently operating under the Betway sports betting brand, belonging to the newly established Super Money SA division. Technically, it chose the Solana blockchain, compliance is handled by Chainalysis, and reserves are custodied by South Africa's ABSA Bank at a 1:1 ratio. According to the reserve report released by Moore Blockchain and Digital Assets on May 11, as of April 30, there were approximately 4,027,042 ZARSC in circulation (about $241,000), while the bank-held reserve assets had a fair value of about 5.417 million rand (about $325,000), with a reserve coverage ratio of 134.54%. In plain terms, each circulating stablecoin is backed by more than 1.3 times the physical assets.
The advantages of crypto payments and the gray areas of regulation
Why are both gambling operators and players leaning towards crypto? Wendy Rosenberg, head of digital media business at Johannesburg's Werksmans Attorneys, analyzed it thoroughly: Licensed gambling companies find it much cheaper to receive bets in crypto than through traditional payment service providers, and those illegal offshore platforms see crypto as a tool to circumvent regulation—crypto currently operates outside the central bank clearing system, can avoid bank interception of transactions to illegal sites, and also skip KYC requirements.
South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority has already classified crypto assets as financial products, requiring crypto asset service providers to operate with a license. But crypto gambling consultant Stefan Kovach pointed out a more practical pain point: Traditional banks charge more than one rand for processing small transactions, while stablecoin payments can be done with zero fees. Once the scale is up, the savings are substantial. However, he also warned that price volatility, lack of consumer protection, and tightening KYC are reducing the anonymity advantage, and these pitfalls are not small. The biggest difference with ZARSC and previous crypto gambling experiments is that it is backed by a NYSE-listed company, "This kind of institutional credibility might really change the game rules."
ENS Africa law firm's Itzkowitz and Maltz threw some cold water from a data perspective: South African gambling statistics are divided by traditional categories—betting, casinos, bingo, limited payout machines—crypto-settled gambling activities are not singled out at all. It's impossible to accurately measure from domestic regulation or market data how much money is channeled through crypto. But a study commissioned by the South African Gambling Association gives a startling profile: Illegal platforms account for about 62% of the online gambling market, with more than 50 billion rand (about $3 billion) in total gambling revenue flowing overseas each year, and by 2025, up to 16 million South Africans will be active on illegal platforms. The role of crypto in these gray payment channels is currently uncertain.
Nigeria and Ghana could become the next hotspots for crypto gambling
Menashe was quite restrained in the Q1 call, stating that the group would be patient with the rollout of ZAR Supercoin, "let's see how it runs first." Once South Africa is up and running, the roadmap for the other seven African markets will also be in place. Kovach judged that West Africa, especially Nigeria and Ghana, are most likely to become the next explosion points for crypto gambling—currency instability and high mobile penetration are two conditions naturally suited for crypto payments to take root. Ghana passed the Virtual Asset Service Provider Act in December 2025, paving the way for the local gambling market.
But all parties point to the same bottleneck: regulatory clarity. Itzkowitz and Maltz believe that before operators massively adopt stablecoins, they need clear statements on six dimensions: gambling law, crypto asset regulation, anti-money laundering, taxation, foreign exchange control, and consumer protection. Kovach directly pointed out the core contradiction—the Financial Sector Conduct Authority regulates crypto, the National Gambling Board regulates gambling, "there has been no effective dialogue mechanism established between these two regulatory islands, and online casino gambling is still basically banned in South Africa, the Remote Gambling Bill hasn't even reached the voting stage, and this process might take several more years." Until these two regulatory frameworks truly connect, crypto gambling will continue to navigate in the gray area.
Looking globally, the UK Gambling Commission has stated that as long as the government sets up a regulatory framework, it will consider allowing crypto payments into online gambling. Some markets in Europe have gone further. But whether fast or slow, the process of regulating crypto gambling is no longer a question of "if," but "when" and "by whose rules."
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This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders," a gambling industry news channel: https://t.me/pasa_news
Original in-depth gambling channel: https://t.me/gamblingdeep
Free data reports: @pasa_research
PASA Matrix: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: https://www.pasa.news
