Sun International launches responsible gambling charter with voluntary advertising time restrictions

Sun International has introduced a Responsible Gambling Charter covering both its online and land-based operations, announced on Tuesday. The company, which accounts for roughly half of South Africa's land-based market, also runs the SunBet online brand in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.

CEO Ulrik Bengtsson said the charter strengthens accountability by putting responsible gambling under board-level oversight, tying related measures to the executive performance scorecard and committing the company to report progress every year. The document rests on four principles: player education, player protection, ethical and responsible marketing, and staff responsibility and training.

The most notable commitments concern advertising. Sun International says it will not display advertising between 6am and 8am or between midday and 6pm, even though South African gambling regulation currently contains no watershed periods. It will also dedicate 10% of its gaming advertising content to responsible gaming messages, and its advertising will not target minors or vulnerable people.

On player protection, the operator offers self-exclusion across its platforms where law and technology permit, together with limits and cooling-off periods. From 2027 it plans to use data analytics and AI-supported monitoring to identify problematic behaviour more quickly. Staff will receive mandatory induction and role-specific training, plus an annual refresher on how to intervene. Responsible gaming information is to be easy to find in venues and online.

The company stressed that these tools depend on players using them. Bengtsson described responsible gambling as a shared responsibility and noted that online limits, cooling-off periods and self-exclusion are available in one click from the home page. The dependence on customer honesty is clear in the ban on opening online accounts for recipients of SASSA social grants or NSFAS funding: Sun cannot access those records and relies on customers declaring their status at sign-up.

Bengtsson also called for enforcement against illegal operators, which do not apply such safeguards. He referred to the government's plans for new gambling legislation and National Treasury's proposal for a 20% national GGR tax on online gambling. In his view, rules or taxes that leave licensed operators less competitive than offshore sites would push players towards unprotected platforms, and he said South Africa needs a consistent national regulatory framework.