Study finds over half SA’s workers are gambling, most to pay expenses, debt

Old Mutual's 2026 Savings and Investment Monitor surveyed just over one and a half thousand working South Africans earning over R8 000 a month. It revealed a widening divide: while higher earners grow more confident and take on more investment risk, lower-income workers face deepening debt distress - using gambling as their coping mechanism. Over half of all workers now bet - 42% of them doing so hoping to win enough to cover their monthly expenses or debt. Most alarming is a near-doubling of gamblers landing in financial difficulty (12% to 22% year-on-year), largely by lower earners. This compounds existing pressures on the bottom end of SA’s pyramid — rising loan-shark borrowing, falling adviser usage, and a 64% surge in unbanked cash savings..BizNews Reporter.More than half of South African workers are turning to sports betting and online gambling to plug budget shortfalls and pay off existing debt, with the practice increasingly leaving them worse off financially, a major new survey has found.Some 53% of South African workers between the ages of 18 and 65, earning at least R8,000 ($477) a month, gamble in some form, according to Old Mutual's Savings and Investment Monitor (OMSIM) 2026, released this week. Of these, 42% say they gamble frequently in the hope of covering expenses or debt — up from 40% a year ago and rising to 52% among lower earners on R8,000 to R15,000 a month.The real alarm bell is what it's costing them. The share of working South Africans who say they've landed in financial difficulty because of their gambling has nearly doubled, from 12% in 2025 to 22% this year. Among gamblers themselves, 41% now report financial trouble as a direct result, up from just 24% last year — with the number climbing to 54% among those earning R8,000 to R15,000 a month, and to 45% among frequent gamblers."You see 22% of people finding themselves in financial difficulty due to gambling in 2026," Vuyokazi Mabude, head of brand at Old Mutual, said at a briefing. Bloomberg’s Adelaide Changole, who attended the briefing, reports Mabude saying the main draw, cited by 53% of gamblers, is simply "looking for ways to make extra money" — a temptation that has intensified as household budgets buckle under debt and the rising cost of living.Sports betting remains the gambling of choice (63% of gamblers), followed by slots (46%) and lotto (42%), with casino table games and horse racing climbing too. Nearly a third of gamblers now bet two or three times a week or more.The gambling boom is unfolding against a broader backdrop of debt distress. Half of working South Africans say they worry frequently about debt, up from 43% in 2024, and 64% now hold some form of personal loan — including a sharp rise in borrowing from mashonisas (loan sharks), up from 12% to 19%, and from family, friends and stokvels. Financial stress, which had been easing since 2022, ticked back up this year to 40%, driven almost entirely by lower earners, whose stress levels jumped from 41% to 47% even as stress among those earning R30,000-plus continued to fall.Workers are also chasing quick wins elsewhere. Old Mutual found rising use of investment apps that mimic gambling, encouraging trading in stocks, cryptocurrencies and options — appetite for crypto alone grew from 27% to 34% this year. Nearly half of respondents (48%) said they now turn to general AI chatbots for financial guidance, more than the 40% who use a human financial adviser, a figure that has itself declined from 45% in 2024."That is all good when it works, but if it doesn't, people end up in trouble," said Old Mutual Wealth Chief Investment Strategist Izak Odendaal.The pressure is deepening an already fragile savings picture: 47% of workers say they've dipped into savings just to make ends meet, and unbanked cash savings — money kept outside the formal system — have surged from 53% to 64% in a year..Read more:.Africa’s gambling boom is emptying household wallets, CEOs warn.Gambling turnover in South Africa topped R1.5 trillion in 2025, according to the National Gambling Board, with the activity now absorbing about 1.6% of household consumption spending — just behind spending on beer, Statistics South Africa data show.Old Mutual's findings paint a picture of a two-speed nation: higher earners growing more confident and taking on more investment risk, while lower-income workers sink deeper into debt, informal borrowing and gambling-fuelled financial stress — a divide the insurer says calls for far more accessible, practical financial guidance..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

Study finds over half SA’s workers are gambling, most to pay expenses, debt

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