R8 million per day – Sunbet is sizzling

The online betting platform Sunbet has grown substantially over the past few years and now sees an average of R8.2 million in daily cash deposits.

Sunbet-owner Sun International released its results this week, which revealed strong company results and the impressive growth of South Africa’s gambling market.

Sun International’s results revealed that its revenue from the South African gambling market achieved a compound annual growth rate of 8.9% between 2010 and 2023.

This growth is largely due to the growth in online gambling over the past few years, which grew exponentially during the pandemic.

In particular, Sunbet has seen incredible growth, especially in the past year.

In 2023, Sunbet’s total gross gaming revenue was R926 million, a 125% increase from the previous year.

This was driven by a 72.6% growth in income from live casino games, with its full-year income from online slots generating R523 million.

The platform achieved 400,000 new signups in 2023 and saw its unique active players climb by 269% to 403,105.

This saw Sunbet reach R8.2 million in cash deposits per day on average in 2023, up 162% from 2022.

In 2023, Sunbet saw total deposits of R3 billion, more than double what it had the year prior.

Sunbet’s incredible growth means it smashed many of the performance and financial targets Sun International had set.

Therefore, Sun Internatioanal’s latest results revealed that it now had new goals for the platform in the next five years.

By 2028, Sunbet wants to grow its gross gaming revenue to R3 billion and achieve an EBITDA of R900 million – up from the current R221 million.

In addition, Sunbet wants its market share to grow to at least 10% from 3.7% currently.

South Africa’s R800 billion gambling industry

South Africa’s gambling industry has grown significantly over the past few years.

According to the National Gambling Board, at the end of FY2022/23, R815.1 billion was wagered in the South African gambling industry.

This is 45.6% higher than the turnover generated during the previous financial year. 

Gross gambling revenue amounted to R47.2 billion in 2022/23, a 36.9% increase from the previous year.

Betting generated half of this revenue at 50.3% or R23.7 billion. Casinos also generated a sizable proportion at R17.3 billion. 

The Limited Payout Machine industry is the third largest sector (9.0%), generating R4.2 billion during 2022/23. The bingo sector generated 3.9% of revenues at R1.8 billion

South Africa’s total Gross Gambling Revenue (GGR) Source: National Gambling Board