Yazi’s 2026 South African Gambling Impact Study finds sacrifice of essentials, borrowing, and loss chasing in online gambling, despite self-reported control.
A new national report from Yazi highlights risky online gambling patterns in South Africa. It shows many users say they are in control, but their spending and borrowing behaviour often suggests otherwise.
South Africa research technology company Yazi published the 2026 South African Gambling Impact Study. The study surveyed 1,028 people who had gambled online in the previous 30 days.
Yazi also collected 2,569 participant voice notes on WhatsApp. Voice notes are short recorded messages, and they were used to add personal detail behind the survey numbers.
Key findings include financial trade-offs and “loss chasing”, which is when someone keeps betting after losing to try to win back money. Yazi says 57% of respondents reported sacrificing essentials like groceries, transport, rent, airtime, or debt repayments to fund gambling. It also found 29% had borrowed money to gamble.
The report says 59% admitted to chasing losses by placing additional bets on the same day. Yet 72% described themselves as being in control, which Yazi frames as a “self-image dilemma”. Nearly one in four respondents said they spend more than 10% of their monthly income on gambling.
The study also challenges a common assumption about who gambles online. Yazi reports that 61% of respondents were women.
Online gambling is growing across African markets, and it sits at the intersection of consumer fintech, entertainment, and mobile access. The Yazi report suggests harm can be hidden because many users do not identify as problem gamblers, even when they borrow, cut essentials, or chase losses.
That mismatch matters for operators, regulators, and responsible gambling programmes. If messaging treats users as reckless, it may be ignored. The report also flags a product issue, 28% of respondents were unaware of operator limit-setting tools, which are in-app controls that cap deposits or betting spend.
Yazi says conversational research on WhatsApp helped surface more candid behaviour than a standard survey alone. If regulators and betting platforms want better outcomes, the report suggests they may need clearer tool design, better user education, and interventions that match how customers see themselves.
Primary Source: IT-Online
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