South African comedian and podcaster, Trevor Noah.
Image: File.
Recently, South African export Trevor Noah took to his "What Now? With Trevor Noah" podcast to tackle a pressing issue that impacts countless South Africans and people worldwide: gambling.
With mobile casino games being played by a staggering 71% of the population, South Africa has established itself as the largest gambling market on the African continent, according to the African Gambling Market Forecast.
A survey from online sports betting platform Bettabets sheds further light on this trend, revealing that nearly half of all gamblers are navigating these challenging waters in a bid to meet escalating cost-of-living expenses ranging from school fees to rent.
Alarmingly, 70% admitted to gambling primarily to supplement their income rather than for leisure.
During the podcast, which featured his good friend and renowned author Khaya Dlanga as a guest, Noah delved into the nuances of gambling's impact on society.
This topic struck a personal chord with Dlanga who tragically lost his brother to suicide due to addiction to online gambling.
Together with a seven-minute video clip of the conversation, Dlanga posted on X: "I urge you to listen to this, especially if you’re struggling with gambling. Trevor and I spoke about online sports betting. Some of you know I lost my brother to suicide because of his addiction to it. After hearing that, Trevor stopped accepting betting companies as advertisers on his podcast.
"In this clip, he and Ryan (who’s off screen) make some very sharp points about how these companies operate and the sneaky, manipulative tricks they use to get people to spend all their money."
During the podcast Noah said: "The thing about gambling, on the face of it, gambling is fun and innocuous, but when people work to make you gamble more than you can and should, I don't know man. I feel like this about a few products we've allowed in society and the world is we've made it seem like it's all about the individual's responsibility, but we know that there are certain individuals who can't over-ride that because it has been designed to hack that."
"They will make certain foods addictive, but then we blame people for being addicted to those foods. Gambling is one of those, the way they loop people ... They always rope you in with 'free', come in and start with a free bet ... People have been tricked into thinking all products are the same and all ramifications are the equal."
Meanwhile, Ryan added: "I think theres a real big problem and gambling is one of them. Your best customer is the one that goes bankrupt on your product. There is no other product what relies on you going bankrupt for their benefit ... With online gambling, their bottom line is reliant on people going bankrupt."
Watch the video clip below.